
Philippines' Marcos says open to reconciling with Dutertes
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr speaks during a campaign rally ahead of the elections, in Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, Philippines, May 9, 2025. REUTERS/Lisa Marie David/File Photo
MANILA (Reuters) -Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said he was open to reconciling with the Duterte family, one week after allies of his estranged Vice President, Sara Duterte, outperformed expectations in a fiercely contested and pivotal Senate race.
In a podcast shared on his Facebook page on Monday, Marcos said he needed friends rather than enemies as he seeks to use the remaining three years of his term to deliver on his agenda.
Philippine presidents are limited to a single six-year term.
"Yes," Marcos said when asked if he would be open to mending fences, after a bitter and very public falling-out between Marcos and the Duterte camps, which has fractured the once-powerful alliance that swept both to victory in 2022. "As much as possible, what I am after is stability... so that we can do our jobs. That is why I am always open to things like that," he told the podcast.
Duterte's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Marcos' remarks.
Sara Duterte is facing a Senate impeachment trial that could see her removed from office and permanently barred from holding public office again, denying her a presidential run in 2028.
Her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, was elected mayor of Davao last week, even as he is detained at the International Criminal Court on charges of murder as a crime against humanity.
Despite surveys predicting a Senate sweep by the president's allies in the May 12 midterm polls, some victories by Duterte-aligned candidates have given Sara Duterte an important foothold in the Senate that could prove pivotal in an impeachment trial.
All 24 Senators will serve as jurors in the trial, with two-thirds required to vote for the impeachment for it to succeed.
Marcos has distanced himself from the impeachment process, and on Monday said it was in the hands of the Senate.
"There's a process for that, let's allow the process to take its course," he said.
(Reporting by Karen Lema and Mikhail Flores; Editing by John Mair)

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Star
32 minutes ago
- The Star
US military bases to restore names changed after racial justice protests, Trump says
U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to deliver remarks during a visit to Fort Bragg to mark the U.S. Army anniversary, in North Carolina, U.S., June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the military would rename bases which were changed after racial justice protests in 2023, including reverting to Fort Lee originally named after Civil War-era Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. Under the Trump administration, the Pentagon has already renamed Fort Moore back to its original name of Fort Benning and Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been able to sidestep a Congressional provision that banned bases having Confederate names by renaming bases after people with the same names as the Confederate officials. "We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort AP Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee," Trump said while speaking at Fort Bragg. "We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It's no time to change," Trump said as uniformed service members stood behind him. Fort Lee, located in Petersburg, Virginia, was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams in 2023. After Trump's announcement, the Army said that Fort Lee would be renamed after Private Fitz Lee, a Medal of Honor recipient from the Spanish-American War. During Trump's speech at Fort Bragg, some audience members, including those in uniform, cheered as the president made the announcement. They also jeered at the press as Trump pointed towards reporters and called them "Fake News" and applauded as he took shots at his predecessor, Joe Biden. Uniformed members of the U.S. armed forces are meant to be apolitical, carrying out the policies of Democratic and Republican administrations. The 2023 move to shed Confederate names for military bases came in the wake of nationwide protests after the 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Confederate flags and base names can be offensive to many Americans, who see them as reminders of the enslavement of Black Americans and symbols of white supremacy. Congress in 2021 passed legislation forbidding the naming of bases after anyone who voluntarily served or held leadership in the Confederate States of America, the breakaway republic of Southern states that fought against the U.S. in the Civil War in the 19th Century. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in North Carolina, Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart in Washington D.C.; Editing by Stephen Coates)


The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
ICE's tactics draw criticism as it triples daily arrest targets
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Migrant workers picked up at a well-known Italian restaurant in San Diego. A high school volleyball player detained and held for deportation after a traffic stop in Massachusetts. Courthouse arrests of people who entered the U.S. legally and were not hiding. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been intensifying efforts in recent weeks to deliver on Republican President Donald Trump's promise of record-level deportations. The White House has demanded the agency sharply increase arrests of migrants in the U.S. illegally, sources have told Reuters. That has meant changing tactics to achieve higher quotas of 3,000 arrests per day, far above the earlier target of 1,000 per day. Community members and Democrats have pushed back, arguing that ICE is targeting people indiscriminately and stoking fear. Tensions boiled over in Los Angeles over the weekend when protesters took to the streets after ICE arrested migrants at Home Depot stores, a garment factory and a warehouse, according to migrant advocates. 'It seems like they're just arresting people they think might be in the country without status and amenable to deportation,' said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. The apparent shift further undercuts the Trump administration message that they are focused on the "worst of the worst" criminal offenders, and suggests they are pursuing more people solely on the basis of immigration violations. Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, told Reuters in late May that the administration had deported around 200,000 people over four months. The total lags deportations during a similar period under former President Joe Biden, who faced higher levels of illegal immigration and quickly deported many recent crossers. ICE's operations appeared to intensify after Stephen Miller, a top White House official and the architect of Trump's immigration agenda, excoriated senior ICE officials in a late May meeting over what he said were insufficient arrests. During the meeting, Miller said ICE should pick up any immigration offenders and not worry about targeted operations that focus on criminals or other priorities for deportation, three people familiar with the matter said, requesting anonymity to share the details. Miller said ICE should target stores where migrant workers often congregate, such as the home improvement retailer Home Depot and 7-Eleven convenience stores, two of the people said. The message was 'all about the numbers, not the level of criminality,' one of the people said. Miller did not seem to be taking into account the complexities of immigration enforcement, one former ICE official said. In Los Angeles, for example, a 2024 court decision limits ICE's ability to knock on doors to make immigration arrests and local law enforcement does not cooperate fully with federal immigration authorities. "The numbers they want are just not possible in a place like L.A. unless you go to day laborer sites and arrest every illegal alien," the former ICE official said. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson defended Trump's enforcement push. 'If you are present in the United States illegally, you will be deported,' she said in a statement to Reuters. 'This is the promise President Trump made to the American people and the administration is committed to keeping it.' A DHS spokesperson said ICE officers executed criminal search warrants at the restaurant in San Diego; that the high school volleyball player in Massachusetts was subject to deportation; and that courthouse arrests were aimed at speeding up removals of migrants who entered under Biden. ARRESTED AT CHECK-INS On Sunday, more than a hundred people gathered outside the jail in Butler County, Ohio, to protest the detention of Emerson Colindres, 19, a standout soccer playerfrom Honduras who graduated from high school in May. Colindres, who has been in the U.S. since he was 8 years old, was being monitored via an ICE 'alternatives to detention' program that uses cell phone calls, ankle bracelets and other devices to track people. He received a text message to come in for an appointment last week and was taken into custody on arrival. Colindres was ordered deported after his family's asylum claim was denied, but he had been appearing for regular check-ins and had a pending visa application, his mother, Ada Baquedano, said in an interview. "They want to deport him, but he knows nothing about our country,' she said. 'He's been here since he was very little.' The DHS spokesperson said Colindres had a final deportation order and that too many people with such orders had previously been placed on alternatives to detention. 'If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen,' the spokesperson said. The Migration Policy Institute's Gelatt said detaining people at ICE check-ins will help the agency boost arrest numbers. But these are often people who are already cooperating with ICE and could cost more to detain. (Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Ross Colvin and Stephen Coates)


The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Bolsonaro denies orchestrating Brazil coup in Supreme Court testimony
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro attends Brazil's Supreme Court trial over an alleged coup attempt, in Brasilia, Brazil June 9, 2025. REUTERS/Diego Herculano BRASILIA (Reuters) -Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro denied that he led an attempt to overthrow the government after losing the 2022 election during his trial before the country's Supreme Court on Tuesday, but acknowledged taking part in meetings aimed at reversing the outcome. Bolsonaro said he and senior aides discussed alternatives to accepting the electoral results, including the possibility of deploying military forces and suspending some civil liberties, but he said those proposals were soon dropped. "The feeling was that there was nothing else we could do. We had to swallow the election results," the ex-president said. "I never acted against the Constitution," Bolsonaro added, holding a copy of the country's 1988 charter that re-established democracy after two decades of military rule. In March, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case against Bolsonaroand sevenother people, including several military officers, who were charged with plotting a coup to stop Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvafrom taking office in January 2023. The charges stem from a two-year police investigation into the election-denying movement that culminated in riots by Bolsonaro supporters in the capital in early 2023, a week after Lula took office. Bolsonaro, who was the sixth defendant to testify in the case, spent several minutes of his two hours of testimony defending his administration's achievements and his criticism of the country's electoral system. Dozens of witnesses were previously heard by the court, an indication that the case is moving swiftly and could be concluded by the end of the year, avoiding overlap with campaigning for the 2026 presidential election. Bolsonaro has insisted he will run in that campaign, despite an electoral court decision barring him from seeking public office until 2030. On Monday, Bolsonaro attended the trial to watch testimony from Mauro Cid, his former aide turned whistleblower, and then shook his hand. Cid told the court that the former president reviewed a draft decree that was central to the coup plot and made changes, while keeping a section that ordered the arrest of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is now overseeing the case against Bolsonaro and his allies. On Tuesday, the former president said he only briefly saw the draft decree and never edited it. He also apologized for making unfounded corruption allegations about Supreme Court justices. "Forgive me," he told Moraes. A final ruling on Bolsonaro's case is expected by October. (Reporting by Ricardo BritoWriting by Manuela Andreoni; Editing by Brad Haynes and Bill Berkrot)