Marcos Says He Wants Abalos in Government Role After Senate Loss

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Thursday that he wants Benhur Abalos to take a formal position in government after the former interior secretary’s unsuccessful Senate bid last year. Speaking to reporters in Kazan, Russia, after the ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit, Marcos stated: “Okay, I’ll be very candid; I’ll be very frank with you.

Of course, I want Benhur to play a more active role in government. Of course, he has been there and he has been helping us in many ways, informally, privately. ” Marcos said any such appointment would not require removing an existing Cabinet member.

“Just because we want him to join, to become a more active, to play a more active part in government, doesn’t… necessarily mean that somebody else has to be [removed],” he said. ” He described the current Cabinet as effective. “And you know, I think we have a really good group of people in the Cabinet right now.

And we are working well together…. ” Marcos said. Abalos resigned as Department of the Interior and Local Government secretary in October 2024 to run for senator under the administration ticket. He finished 16th.

He had previously served as Marcos’s national campaign manager in the 2022 presidential election and resigned as Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chief in the final months of the Duterte administration. Marcos rejected the idea of rearranging posts to create space for new appointees. “What you are trying to promote in government is stability and the steadiness of work….

That’s an important part of governance,” he said. “If you keep moving people around, they have to start learning their job again…. ” “And to just keep moving people around for no really good reason — it makes no sense to me,” Marcos said.