Education Secretary Sonny Angara on Thursday said he will not step down as long as President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. does not ask him to do so.

Angara said he will continue to serve in the Department of Education (DepEd) unless the President himself asks him to resign.

“Well, we Cabinet secretaries only serve at the will of the President, at the pleasure of the President,” Angara said in an interview on the sidelines of the ceremonial turnover of laptops at Rizal Elementary School in Taguig City.

“So as long as the President needs us to help our countrymen, we’re there,” the DepEd chief added.

On Wednesday, Malacañang denied that Angara and Information and Communications Technology Secretary Henry Aguda were on their way out of the Marcos administration.

In a briefing, Communications Assistant Secretary Gerald Baria refuted the claim, pointing out that both Angara and Aguda attended the recent Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council meeting in Malacañang.

“We deny this because they were with us at yesterday’s Ledac meeting. They also presented their projects in a private meeting with the President. So we denied the information about their departure,” Baria said.

An online news site, citing an unnamed source, claimed the two officials were at risk of losing their posts in the Marcos Cabinet.

Angara, a former senator, dismissed suggestions that he should step down after he was linked to alleged kickbacks from fund insertions during his time as chair of the Senate committee on finance.

He said he will not resign amid the allegations connecting him to anomalous government flood control projects, stressing that the accusations are baseless and unsupported by evidence.