De Lima: Duterte knows he shouldn’t run for VP – but he doesn’t care

President Rodrigo Duterte is fully aware that, while it is not explicitly stated, the 1987 Constitution does not allow a sitting president to reoccupy the presidency after his or her term ends, but he will only abuse such a loophole, Senator Leila de Lima said on Monday.

“You can trust Duterte never to take the Constitution or the law into consideration,” the detained senator said in dispatch from Camp Crame.

“The intent of the Constitution in banning presidents from reelection is basically to serve as a proscription against any person from occupying the presidency again after already being elected to said office,” De Lima said.

“But of course, since the Constitution did not spell out that any other manner of assuming the presidency other than via re-election is also proscribed, Duterte takes this as a license for becoming the president again via the vice presidency,” she said.

“Not that Duterte cares that there is a Constitution and that he must follow it. But sometimes it helps that the Constitution does not spell out explicitly that what he is doing is illegal and prohibited. It gives him room to pretend that he gives a damn about the Constitution and the law,” De Lima said.

“In the absence of such constitutional ‘loophole,’ will Duterte even care? Of course not,” she said.

“He already violated and continues to violate with abandon the very first law from which all other laws emanate: Thou shall not kill. You violate that first law of civilization and humanity, there is no other law that you would not think of violating,” De Lima said.

“So this is why Duterte thinks of running for Vice President, even when all his predecessors, even PGMA (President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo), did not even as much as entertain the idea. Because his predecessors knew this is a basic violation of the Constitution, albeit not in its black letter, but its very spirit,” she said.

“Duterte knows this too, but he simply does not care,” De Lima said.

“He always holds himself beyond the law and the Constitution. There is no reason why he would change that, especially when every law ever enacted is about to be used against him once he leaves Malacañang,” she said.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)