As the House leadership threatens fake Vice President Leni Robredo with impeachment, the late nation builder's son Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. might take her place.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said that if Leni Robredo is removed from office after impeachment in the House of Representatives and finding of guilt by the Senate, Marcos could claim the post.
But a resolution of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal favoring the protest filed by Marcos in the 2016 vice presidential race would be necessary even if Robredo is successfully removed from office.
“Under our law, it is the third highest official that shall immediately succeed the vacancy in the vice president post,” Aguirre explained to The STAR yesterday, referring to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III.
Aguirre cited the order of succession in the top elective posts under Article VII, Section 7 of the Constitution, where the Senate president is second in line of succession to the vice president.
House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who announced last week the plan to impeach Robredo, is the next in line, followed by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
The Constitution, however, also gives the President the power to nominate a replacement for a vacant vice presidential post from among members of the Senate and House, subject to approval of a majority of Congress voting separately.
This was the case when former senator Teofisto Guingona Jr. was appointed vice president in 2001 when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency after the EDSA 2 people power revolution ousted former president Joseph Estrada on plunder charges.
Aguirre opined that the immediate succession by Pimentel is without prejudice to the ruling of the PET in the pending protest of Marcos.
“If the PET rules later on in favor of the protest, then Bongbong will take over the post,” he added.
He also said that the possible removal from office of Robredo via impeachment is without prejudice or without effect to the PET protest of Marcos.
The PET case, however, is still in the preliminary stage nine months after it was filed by Bongbong Marcos.
Earlier this month, Marcos asked the PET to now hear his election protest against Robredo and set the case for preliminary conference by dismissing the alleged dilatory pleadings of the Vice President.
Marcos filed the protest on June 29, 2016, claiming that the camp of Robredo clearly cheated in the automated polls in May 2016. He sought annulment of about a million votes cast in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao.