Malacañang on Wednesday further distanced itself from the Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte-National Executive Coordinating Committee’s (MRRD-NECC) push for a revolutionary government.
In an interview over CNN Philippines’ The Source, Palace spokesman Harry Roque questioned the group’s intentions.
“I don’t know what they want. They claim to be supporters of the [Duterte] so why would they want to unseat a constitutional president,” Roque said.
“So I find it strange, the whole exercise to me is incomprehensible,” he added.
Roque asserted the unconstitutionality of a revolutionary government.
“It’s not constitutional. As precisely it’s called revolutionary, because it does not fall within the framework of the Constitution and as far as I am concerned, the President was elected to a fixed term office, he will finish that fixed term of office… and all public officers took an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land,” he said.
MRRD-NECC, unlike other groups advocating for the shift to a revolutionary government, did not want a presidential succession and preferred to keep Duterte in power.
Roque explained that the revolutionary government of the late President Corazon “Cory” Aquino, under whose presidency the 1987 Constitution was established, was constitutional as it was ratified.
However, Roque rejected MRRD-NECC’s proposal and said Duterte remained “committed to the framework of the 1987 Constitution.” John Ezekiel J. Hirro