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
11 minutes ago
- The Star
Lawyers for man mistakenly deported from US say he should be freed while DOJ pursues new charges
FILE PHOTO: Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, looks on during a press conference with other family members, supporters and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 9, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno/File Photo (Reuters) -Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March and returned on Friday, said their client should be set free while the U.S. Department of Justice pursues new criminal charges against him. The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday had asked a federal judge in Tennessee to detain Abrego Garcia while he is prosecuted on newly-filed charges of transporting illegal immigrants within the United States. The motion filed on Wednesday said Abrego Garcia had already been imprisoned without due process and he posed no danger to the community and no flight risk. 'Mr. Abrego Garcia asks the Court for what he has been denied the past several months – due process,' Abrego Garcia's attorneys wrote in Wednesday's court filing. 'Mr. Abrego Garcia must be released.' Abrego Garcia on March 15 was deported to El Salvador, despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that he should not be sent there because he could be persecuted by gangs, and the incident has become a flashpoint for Republican PresidentDonald Trump's aggressive immigration policies. The Trump administration has said Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, an accusation his lawyers deny. Trump administration officials have accused the judiciary of interfering with the executive branch's ability to conduct foreign policy, and they portrayed Abrego Garcia's criminal indictment as vindication for their approach to deportations. A grand jury in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 21 indicted him on charges of transporting undocumented migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to locations around the country. Abrego Garcia remains detained pending his next court hearing on Friday. His lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg has called the criminal charges "fantastical" and a "kitchen sink" of allegations. (Reporting by Dietrich Knauth and Luc Cohen; Editing by Leigh Jones and Chris Reese)
The Star
15 minutes ago
- The Star
New Russian ambassador tells Trump he will work to restore relations
FILE PHOTO: A pedestrian walks with an umbrella outside the Embassy of the Russian Federation, near the Glover Park neighborhood of Washington, U.S., February 22, 2022. REUTERS/Tom Brenner/File Photo (Reuters) -The new Russian ambassador to the United States, Alexander Darchiev, pledged to work to fully restore relations with Washington as he formally presented his credentials to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported. "Russia and the United States are destined, as great powers, to have non-confrontational peaceful existence," the agencies quoted Darchiev as telling a reception at Russian embassy after returning from the White House. "It was a great honour for me, as Russian ambassador, to speak with President Trump and I assured him that I and this embassy under my direction will do everything to restore Russian-American relations and bring them back to normality and common sense." He said Trump had found time to receive him on the eve of the Russia Day holiday - which marks Russia's 1990 declaration of sovereignty, more than a year before the Soviet collapse. Darchiev has already completed two diplomatic stints in the United States and served as ambassador to Canada from 2014 to 2021. Like other senior Russian diplomats, he has in recent years issued strong public denunciations of the United States and the West. Washington's relations with Moscow plunged to their lowest in decades under Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, over the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. Ties have improved since Trump took office, with the two sides in contact to discuss a possible resolution to the conflict. "We have at last moved from monologues under the previous administration and a general absence of discussion to quite a pragmatic conversation, a complicated conversation," Darchiev was quoted as saying. The ambassador said his meeting with the U.S. president was a short one as dictated by protocol. "Nonetheless, our discussion was very constructive," the agencies quoted him as saying. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
The Sun
16 minutes ago
- The Sun
US Senate rejects bids to block arms sales to Qatar, UAE
WASHINGTON: The U.S. Senate on Wednesday blocked resolutions that would have halted more than $3 billion in military sales to the governments of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The Senate voted 56-39 against considering legislation that would have blocked the $1.9 billion sale of armed drones and associated equipment to Qatar. The vote was largely along party lines, with Trump's fellow Republicans opposing the effort to stop the sale and most Democrats backing it. The 100-member chamber later voted by the same 56 to 39 margin against an effort to block a $1.6 billion sale to the UAE of helicopters and other equipment. Backers of the resolutions of disapproval said they opposed the sales for reasons including Qatar's offer of a luxury jet as a gift to Trump and an agreement for a firm backed by the Emiratis to use a stablecoin launched by Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture. Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a lead sponsor of the resolutions, called the agreements a corruption of U.S. foreign policy. The embassies of Qatar and the UAE did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Senator Jim Risch, the Idaho Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described both countries as reliable partners to the U.S. and dismissed the resolutions as partisan politics.
