Philippine Vice President Teofisto Guingona will stay on as foreign minister after the presidential palace yesterday released -- and then withdrew -- a letter that he was relinquishing the job.
Despite obvious differences with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, especially relating to US anti-terror exercises in the south of the country, officials said Guingona will continue to hold office both as vice president and foreign minister.
PHOTO: AP
"The president has full confidence in Guingona," acting executive secretary Avelino Cruz told reporters.
Officials privately said Guingona had agreed to resign within the next few months because of the differences with Arroyo, but felt slighted by what he saw as a premature announcement.
Arroyo backed off from insisting he quit immediately because of the possible fall-out from any differences with the second-most senior leader in the country, they said.
Chief government spokesman Silvestre Afable said a letter from Arroyo announcing that Guingona was relinquishing his position at the foreign ministry was not intended for circulation.
Afable had released the letter earlier in the day, which referred to "honest differences of opinion" between Arroyo and Guingona on joint military exercises between US and Filipino troops aimed at eliminating Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas.
"It was not a spurious letter," Afable said. "But it was not meant for release. It was meant to be torn up."
Guingona, a 73-year-old veteran politician, had maintained through the day that he had not resigned. He was all smiles after meeting Arroyo late yesterday and told reporters later: "I am still the secretary of foreign affairs."
It has been an open secret that Guingona was unhappy with the deployment of about 1,000 US troops in the south to help put down an insurgency by the Abu Sayyaf rebels, linked by the US to the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.
The vice president, a fierce nationalist, reportedly opposed the deployment because it violated a constitutional bar on allowing foreign troops into the country, a former US colony.
In the letter, Arroyo referred to Guingona's "reservations" about the US presence and said: "Let the things that unite us prevail over honest differences of opinion that tend to divide."
Arroyo named Guingona to succeed her as vice president in January last year after she took the presidency from Joseph Estrada, who was ousted in a military-backed "people's movement."
She later said Guingona would concurrently head the foreign affairs department.
The US and the Philippines have long-standing military ties and regularly hold joint exercises, but American troops had never been sent to an area Manila considers hostile.
Arroyo has been one of Washington's strongest supporters in its war against terror, and she personally pushed the plan to have US troops train the Philippine military in their battle against the Abu Sayyaf. But US troops have not been involved in any combat operations in the five months they have been in the south.
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