July 24, 2024
MANILA – The chief of the Philippine National Police on Tuesday confirmed the removal of police officers from the security detail of Vice President Sara Duterte, saying they were transferred to beef up street patrols especially in Metro Manila.
Earlier in the day, Duterte released a statement saying the PNP had issued a “Notice of Relief” to 75 personnel posted under the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
“I want to assure the public that [the PNP] order will not affect my work in the Office of the Vice President,” Duterte said. “Our work will continue in delivering the services to our fellow Filipinos—especially in the rural and underserved communities in the country.”
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“I do hope, however, that with this latest directive of the Chief PNP, we hear less cries from the people regarding the proliferation of drugs in the country, and that even fewer shall fall victim to various criminal activities,” she said.
Day after Sona absence
The reduction of the Vice President’s security force came to light a day after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivered his third State of the Nation Address, which Duterte did not attend.
Her absence at the event—plus her earlier remark that she had appointed herself “designated survivor” on Sona day, a supposed joke that Marcos’ congressional allies did not find amusing—was seen as the latest sign of soured relations between her and Marcos, who took her as his running mate in the 2022 presidential race.
In a chance interview with reporters, PNP chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil confirmed the pullout of police personnel from the OVP but maintained that Duterte’s office was not being singled out.
The PNP’s Police Security Protection Group (PSPG) coordinated with the chief of staff of Duterte for the transfer, he said.
“We didn’t relieve them. We asked them if we could transfer the personnel because we need them in the NCR (National Capital Region),” he said.
“We need to get our people because our policemen are already sleepless and tired working beyond their shift and nobody would take their place,” he explained.
Mainly PSC’s job
Marbil also explained that securing the Vice President is the job mainly of the Presidential Security Command (PSC), a military unit, and that the PNP is only there to augment.
“The security of the Vice President is under the Presidential Security Command, not under the PSPG. We are just complementing them,” he said.
According to the latest available record, a 2022 report of the Commission on Audit on the OVP, Duterte had a total of 433 security escorts.
Shortly after she assumed office in 2022, the Armed Forces of the Philippines created a new unit—the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG)—just for the OVP.
The VPSPG remained under PSC’s supervision.
The removal of the PNP component from Duterte’s security force also came just over a month after she resigned as secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd) and five days after she formally turned over the position to Sen. Sonny Angara.
It also suddenly left a gap in the security structure for an official who had repeatedly cited national security and intelligence gathering as part of her areas of concern.
In November 2023, Duterte dropped her request for Congress to give her another allocation of confidential and intelligence funds in the national budget—totaling P650 million for both the OVP and the DepEd—as she conceded that the matter had become “divisive.”