Raymond Garcia: ‘I won’t let any national concerns affect Cebu City’

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CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Raymond Alvin Garcia assured that the city will not be affected by the fallout between the country’s two top officials that has reached international attention.

During a press conference on Monday, Nov. 25, Garcia vowed that he won’t “let any national concerns affect Cebu City,” adding that he won’t make any comments about the conflict between President Bongbong Marcos and Vice-President Sara Duterte.

“First of all, I won’t comment about it because they have their own individual rights and opinions. Pero akoa lang is, padayun lang gihapon ko sa akong panerbisyo sa katawhan and I won’t let any national concern affect me and the city,” he said.

At the same time, the mayor shared that he maintains a good relationship with Marcos and Duterte, stressing that he intended to keep things professional.

“I have good relationships with them but we don’t talk about these things, no. I only come to see them if they come here and they request an audience with me,” Garcia added.

Showdown

The showdown between the President and his constitutional successor reached another boiling point when Marcos on Monday vowed to fight the Vice-President’s threats of having him assassinated.

In an online news conference, Duterte said that she has contracted an assassin to kill the President, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, and the speaker of the House of Representatives, Martin Romualdez, if she herself is killed, in a threat she warned was not a joke.

The national police and military immediately boosted the security of the President, and the justice department said it would summon the Duterte for an investigation. The National Security Council said it considered the threat a national security concern.

Duterte, a lawyer, later tried to walk back her remarks by saying it was not an actual threat but an expression of concern about her own safety over an unspecified threat.

This development came amid the national government’s intense scrutiny over Duterte’s confidential funds.

Marcos ran with Duterte as his vice-presidential running mate in May 2022 elections and both won landslide victories on a campaign call of national unity. In the Philippines, the two positions are elected separately.

The two leaders and their camps, however, soon had a bitter falling out over key differences, including in their approaches to China’s aggressive territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea. Duterte resigned from the Marcos Cabinet in June as education secretary and head of an anti-insurgency body.

Under Philippine law, such public remarks may constitute a crime of threatening to inflict a wrong on a person or their family and are punishable by a jail term and fine.

The Philippine Constitution says that if a President dies, sustains a permanent disability, is removed from office or resigns, the Vice President takes over and serves the rest of the term.

Duterte said she was ready to face investigators or an impeachment complaint in Congress, but added she would also demand answers to her allegations against Marcos and his allies. — with Associated Press

/clorenciana

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