MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang said on Monday, March 10, that it was Vice President Sara Duterte who left the government, not the other way around.

This response came after the vice president thanked Filipinos in Hong Kong for their support. She joined a campaign sortie of PDP-Laban in Hong Kong over the weekend.

Palace Press Officer Claire Castro added that the vice president was merely trying to portray herself as the victim.

Castro pointed out that in 2024, Duterte had every right to defend the Office of the Vice President’s budget in Congress. However, she chose to avoid most of the hearings, often engaging in heated verbal exchanges with lawmakers when she did attend.

As a result, Congress slashed Duterte’s proposed budget from P2 billion to P733 million.

Castro compared the budget hearings to a thesis defense, saying that Duterte could not just leave her paper with the panelists and ask them to decide her score as she had to defend the thesis herself.

“Wala pong nang-iwan sa kanya, baka po siya po ang nang-iwan sa gobyerno,” Castro said.

(No one left her behind, maybe she was the one who left the government.)

Castro also responded to Duterte’s claim that she was not endorsing any candidate for senator, saying she had already been “tricked” before. Duterte was likely referring to the 2022 National Elections, where she ran under the UniTeam alliance, the political coalition that helped secure her vice presidential win.

The Palace questioned that if she truly was not endorsing anyone, then why was she appearing in the campaign ads of re-electionist Sen. Bato Dela Rosa.

“Na-scam po siya ng UniTeam? Is it not the  other way around?” Castro said.

(The Uniteam scammed her? Is it not the other way around?)

Half of the senatorial candidates under the UniTeam secured seats in the upper chamber, including staunch Duterte ally Robin Padilla.

Castro said that when the senatorial candidates ran under the UniTeam banner in 2022, they could not have anticipated that Duterte would allegedly spend over P125 million in confidential funds in just 11 days. Nor could they have known that Duterte would be linked to an assassination threat against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The Palace press officer also suggested that Marcos’ decision not to continue former President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs might have contributed to Sara’s decision to turn against the government.

“Hindi po lahat ng ginawa ng dating administrasyon ay susundin ng pikit-mata ng Pangulo,” she said.

(The president will not blindly follow what the past administration did.)

The relationship between Duterte and the Marcos administration soured dramatically in 2024 after she resigned as Education Secretary. Congressional hearings soon followed, investigating her use of government funds, with many highlighting the anomalous spending patterns in the vice president’s government offices.

The House of Representatives has since impeached Sara, and the nation is eagerly awaiting how her impending impeachment trial will unfold in the Senate