“Under the Constitution, the only position in the government the vice president may hold simultaneously with the

vice presidency is that of a member of the president’s Cabinet.

The purported Vice President of the Philippines, Maria Leonor Robredo, is in a very awkward position. As the sitting vice president, Robredo is the proverbial spare tire in the presidency. When that spare tire will be needed, if it will even be needed, is anybody’s guess.

Since Robredo’s job as vice president is to wait for a vacancy in the presidency, many wonder why her office was given a budget of P671.55 million in 2019, and P673 million for next year. Her so-called charity work is a mere duplication of the functions of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Why Robredo has a luxury mansion in New Manila in Quezon City paid for at public expense is another mystery. Under the Constitution, the President of the Philippines is the only national official entitled to an official residence.

Realizing that the vice president’s solitary job is to wait for a vacancy in the top post in Malacañang, which isn’t much work to begin with, Section 3, Article VII of the Constitution allows the president to appoint the vice president as a member of his Cabinet. The president’s power to issue that appointment, however, is discretionary. In other words, the vice president has no vested right to an appointment to the Cabinet.

Jurisprudence provides that a member of the Cabinet is an “alter ego” of the president. That means a decision of a Cabinet secretary is officially deemed an act of the president, unless the decision is reversed or modified by the president himself. Precisely for that reason, the members of the Cabinet are often referred to as the “official family” of the president.

It is also for that reason that the president’s power to appoint the vice president as a member of his official family is discretionary.

Under the Constitution, the only position in the government the vice president may hold simultaneously with the vice presidency is that of a member of the president’s Cabinet. Restated, the vice president cannot hold an office that is not of Cabinet rank.

That prohibition is also founded on practical considerations. If the vice president is appointed to the Cabinet, only the president can reverse or modify the vice president-Cabinet secretary’s decisions. In contrast, if the vice president holds a position below Cabinet rank, she will be subordinate to a Cabinet secretary. That is akin to allowing an elected official to be the subordinate of an unelected official.

When President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Robredo co-chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD), he deemed it a Cabinet-rank appointment because he was under the impression, albeit mistaken, that she can help in his war against the illegal drug trade in the country.

To President Duterte’s unpleasant surprise, however, Robredo immediately embarked on a systematic campaign to undermine his unrelenting fight against drug syndicates and users, and committed every possible act calculated to annoy him.

Last week, an exasperated President Duterte announced that he is not dismissing Robredo from the ICAD, but her appointment is no longer to be considered in the level of a Cabinet position. It was a courteous way of telling Robredo to resign.

Robredo may not realize it but the President’s announcement is both a slap on her face, and a notice that her continued incumbency as ICAD co-chairman has become constitutionally untenable. As stated earlier, the Constitution allows only a Cabinet-level appointment for an incumbent vice president.

Evidently, Robredo’s incumbency as co-chairman of the ICAD is constitutionally infirm, and as a lawyer, she is expected to know that. Since Robredo took an oath to obey the Constitution, she must tender her resignation as ICAD co-chairman immediately, or face possible impeachment for a culpable violation of the Constitution.

True to her anti-Duterte orientation, however, Robredo refused to resign. She said that if the President wants her out of the ICAD, the President should fire her.

Obviously, Robredo is brazenly ignoring the President’s courteous way of letting her make a graceful exit.