Vice President Duterte is OIC while Marcos visits Indonesia, Singapore
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has designated Vice President Sara Duterte as officer-in-charge of the Office of the President and the executive department while he is abroad.
Marcos will be in Indonesia and in Singapore this week for the first state visits of his presidency.
According to Special Order No. 75, Duterte will be OIC "to take care of the day-to-day operations in the Office of the President and oversee the general administration of the Executive Department" except in matters that Marcos is required to personally act on.
Duterte's actions as OIC "shall be deemed as acts of the President, unless disapproved or reprobated by the President."
Duterte, who is also secretary of education, will be OIC from September 4-7.
The designation is notable because it is the first time in recent history that a vice president was named OIC. In previous administrations, the role was often given to the executive secretary or some other senior Cabinet member.
Marcos and Duterte ran together in the May elections under the UniTeam ticket, an alliance of the country's major political parties and powerful political clans. The tandem campaigned on the theme of unity and won by a landslide.
The president and vice president are elected separately in the Philippines but there have been proposals to amend the 1987 Constitution to allow "tandem" voting, where the two top officials will be elected as a ticket.
"First, it would be desirable to have a president and vice president have similar platforms to keep the administration solid and running," Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, a member of the majority bloc, said in November 2021 when he proposed the change.
"Second, if they are allies, and something happens to the president, the vice president will be able to continue what their predecessor started."
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