More than 500 individuals from different sectors launched an online petition on Thursday calling for the resignation of President Rodrigo Duterte, citing his “failure” to address the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We deserve and demand better. Our country is on the brink of disaster. At the time the nation needs him most, Duterte is a total failure as a leader. He must step down,” the petition read.
Screenshot of Change.org petition taken April 18, 2021
According to the petition filed on change.org, the Duterte administration has been marred by “incompetence, brutality, corruption and kowtowing to foreign powers” over the past five years and the Covid-19 pandemic only magnified the president’s failure of leadership.
The petitioners said the country needs a competent leader that can provide a better healthcare system for its citizens.
“We need a competent leadership that can finally ramp up free mass testing, expand contact tracing, and build the isolation and treatment facilities we so badly need towards strengthening the entire health care system,” it said.
The petition also slammed the administration’s poor efforts in defending the country’s sovereignty against the aggression of China in the West Philippine Sea.
“We need a courageous leader willing to defend, in word and in deed, our sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea towards a truly independent foreign policy,” the petitioners said.
“China’s stationing of over 200 maritime militia vessels at Julian Felipe Reef is an affront to our sovereignty that should not be erased by vaccine donations or notions of friendship,” they added.
Amid this threat, the petition said, the President remained “obsessed with the drug war, attacking his critics and ordering the deaths of those he considers his enemies.”
“We do not need a leader who fuels fear or division. We need one who can unite all Filipinos of various beliefs in this one big fight to save the nation,” the petition said. “Duterte is not this leader. He has done too much damage to our people. He will never change. He must resign.”
The petition includes signatories from medical frontliners, members of the academe, artists, journalists, youth leaders, religious leaders, lawyers, civic leaders, and businessmen.
As of April 18, 2021, 40,420 individuals have already signed the petition. Jade Veronique V. Yap