ANN/THE STRAITS TIMES – The Philippine government will use its “authority and forces” to stamp out any attempt to separate the country, its national security adviser said following a threat by former leader Rodrigo Duterte to split his native Mindanao from the rest of the nation.
“The national government will not hesitate to use its authority and forces to quell and stop any and all attempts to dismember the republic,” Eduardo Ano, the security official in President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s government, said in a statement yesterday.
His comments, which did not name Duterte, came after the former president warned last week that the Mindanao region will become independent if his successor goes ahead with plans to amend the constitution.
Marcos has backed efforts to revise the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution to spur the economy, but the 78-year-old ex-leader has accused him of seeking to amend the charter to cement his power.
The remarks underscore the deepening cracks in the alliance of the Philippines’ two most powerful political families that won the 2022 election ahead of mid-term polls in 2023.
In an interview with a local broadcaster in January, Marcos expressed concern over the Southeast Asian nation’s restrictive economic provisions and kept the door open to changes in politicians’ term limits.
Duterte warned Marcos that if he pushes ahead, he would be ousted like his father, who ruled for two decades by revising the constitution.
The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown by a popular revolt in 1986. A new constitution ratified a year later limits the country’s leader to a single, six-year term to prevent future abuse of power.
Other politicians, including Duterte’s daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, say changing the charter is ill-timed as the nation is still grappling with high food prices, crimes and other pressing problems.
