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#PaalamDuterte trends as Pres. Rodrigo Duterte threatens to resign over corruption in government

“I offered to resign as president because I am sick of corruption,” said Duterte in a recorded message.

Has President Rodrigo Duterte given up on his campaign promise to get rid of corruption in the government? His latest speech seems to say he has.

On Monday, September 28, Duterte once again expressed his intent to “resign as President of the Philippines” because of rampant corruption in the country.

“In my many years in government, wala nang katapusan itong corruption. Mahirap talaga pigilin,” the President said. He said that in his many years of public service, no one has been successful in removing corrupt officials and practices.

He appealed to Congress to enact laws to help him fight corruption because he “cannot fight corruption alone.”

He also mentioned the advantage of having a parliamentary system—one of his many campaign promises, saying it is the only solution he sees. “It’s only done in parliamentary countries.”

After hearing this, social media blew up with the hashtag #PaalamDuterte, with reactions ranging from those supporting the President’s resignation…

 

… to those demanding “respect for the President”, even as the pronouncement came from the Duterte himself. Most of these “respect the President” reactions, however, seem to come from Twitter accounts either created fairly recently or having very few interactions and tweets.

https://twitter.com/legendofdaryl/status/1310609162414379008

Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto, III has told people to dismiss the President’s offer to resign, saying it should be “corrupt officials who should think of resigning, not the President.”

Malacañang has echoed Sotto’s sentiment, with Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque saying Duterte “will use his last 2 years to clean up government agencies [of corrupt officials].”

Duterte’s threats to resign? Not the first time

This is not the first time Duterte has offered to resign from his post. In 2019 alone, he has expressed his intent to resign if the military asks him to or if his son, Davao City 1st District Representative Paolo Duterte, wins the house speakership.

2018 would prove to have the most number of times Duterte expressed his “willingness” to resign.

August saw him saying he will only resign if Bongbong Marcos or Alan Peter Cayetano will succeed him as president, bypassing the constitutional succession of power when the President is forced to step down from his position before his 6-year term ends.

In May, he said he would resign if anyone can prove he was behind the ouster of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. A month prior, he said he would resign if Congress fails to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law.

February would see him telling the Filipino people he would resign if he failed to increase the salaries of soldiers and police officers.

He also joked about resigning in the same year if he sees a selfie of someone with God (July 2018) or if enough women signed a petition asking him to step down after kissing a woman during his visit to Seoul, South Korea (June 2018).

The biggest—and most likely serious—attempts of Duterte to resign were if Congress was to pass a new constitution or shift to federalism and if his son Paolo was indeed a corrupt official during his time in Davao.

His longest-standing promise so far: in November 2017, he said he will resign if he fails to eradicate the drug problem in the country. He previously promised to do away with the country’s drug problems in 3 to 6 months. He would then ask for a 6-month extension on his self-imposed deadline.

Duterte would later say it is impossible to end the drug problem in his first year as president, and said his war on drugs would persist until he steps down from the presidency in June 2022.

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