Who replaces VP Sara? Lacson says Cayetano can’t tie Marcos’ hands

In this undated photo shows Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and Sen. Ping Lacson.

Senate SMU

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Ping Lacson questioned why Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano would ask senator-judges to swear off the vice presidency, saying the choice of Vice President Sara Duterte’s successor, should she be convicted, belongs to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. alone.

Lacson said Cayetano’s appeal was “uncalled for” when he spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a Senate budget hearing on Monday. 

Cayetano had urged his fellow senator-judges to follow Sen. Chiz Escudero, who said he would refuse the vice presidency if Duterte is convicted, citing a conflict of interest.

"Bakit niyang pakikialaman ang prerogative ng pangulong pumili? Bakit siya lilimitahan? I think it's uncalled for na pangunahan niya ang pangulo," Lacson told reporters on Monday, October 26.  

(Why would he interfere with the president’s prerogative to choose? Why would he limit it?)

In a later statement on social media, Lacson wrote that "someone had the gall to suggest that my Senate colleagues should decline a VP appointment" if the trial results in conviction and Duterte needed to be replaced. 

The question of who, if ever, would be appointed to the position of vice president is already cropping as the Duterte impeachment trial enters its last stretch.

Under the 1987 Constitution, the president fills a vacancy in the vice presidency by nominating a member of the Senate or the House of Representatives, and a majority of each chamber, voting separately, must confirm the choice.

A conviction would remove Duterte from office and could bar her from running for president in 2028. 

As a hypothetical, Lacson said if the president decided to appoint Sen. Lito Lapid, it would be a "foolish proposition" for the senator to turn the request down.

He asked whether Lapid should have to decline “simply because he is a senator-judge,” then added: “Isn’t that a foolish proposition?”

Lacson said he has no interest in the post himself. His Senate term runs until 2031, and he said he would decline the vice presidency if it were offered.

Cayetano said in a social media post Tuesday that senators "should not discuss a successor as though a conviction were already certain."

"But when should we make clear that we will put personal interests aside? Must we wait until we have voted or someone offers us the position?" he said.

Lacson and Cayetano have feuded through much of the trial and traded accusations of wrongdoing: Lacson has hounded Cayetano with accusations of corruption and attempting to block probes into flood control works in Taguig City.

Cayetano, meanwhile, has accused Lacson of having a questionable increase in his declared net worth and of acting as a "one-man justice department."