Duterte: Junta rather than Leni

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte gives a message during a dinner he hosted for the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) in Malacañan Palace on August 14, 2018. SIMEON CELI JR./PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO Not comfortable with the line of succession, President Rodrigo Duterte said he would prefer a military junta to run the country when he steps down instead of handing the reins of government to Vice President Leni Robredo based on the Constitution’s line of succession.

In a speech at Malacañang late Tuesday evening, Mr. Duterte said “I’d be happy to go home” if the military wanted to take over the government and in choosing the next leader.

There was no need for a “melodrama” in holding a coup d’etat, Mr. Duterte said.

“I would suggest to the military…if you want yourselves to be the junta, I said line up here, I’ll put you in your proper place,” Duterte said.

“All you have to do is to call me, let’s have coffee and say, ‘President, sir, we find you not at par or not in parity with expectation,’” he said.

He added a military council running the government would be better than Robredo who he said cannot “improve on anything here.”

“I have nothing against Robredo. She is a lawyer. You’ve heard her talk but I don’t think she can improve on anything here. Of course, she will deny it,” Mr. Duterte said.

He added Robredo’s hometown, Naga City, was a hotbed of shabu.

Those thinking that he would extend his term as a dictator, Duterte said such detractors should be the “lowest idiot in this country.”

“Really I’m ready to go. I’m telling the military and public and everybody who is listening, if you find somebody who is better and more competent, then by all means place him or a group of persons who you think who could bring prosperity to this nation, then do it because I said I’m tired and I think I cannot fulfill the promise of ending all these problems,” Duterte said.

“The problem is I cannot suggest to them that you follow the succession which is really the Constitution but if they do it I said go ahead. I am hesitant to suggest a constitutional succession,” Mr. Duterte said.

Last 10 July, Mr. Duterte called Robredo incompetent and said that she would never be prepared to replace him as President.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said earlier Duterte only gave an “honest and objective” assessment of Robredo’s capability and should not be taken as an insult to the Vice President.

Frustration and not weakness were how Senators Panfilo Lacson, Joseph Victor Ejercito and Manny Pacquiao described Mr. Duterte’s recent pronouncement that he wanted to resign due to the unending cases of corruption in government.