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With resignation, Zubiri makes Senate history


When Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri resigned from his post on Wednesday, he became the first senator in Philippine history to step down from office not because of the need to assume another government post. In a phone interview with GMA News Online, former Commission on Elections commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said there were at least three former senators who stepped down from office to assume another post. He specifically cited former senators Raúl Sevilla Manglapus, Teofisto Guingona Jr., and incumbent President Benigno Aquino III. Zubiri announced his resignation from the Senate Wednesday after new testimony from detained Zaldy Ampatuan and former COMELEC election supervisor reinforced doubts that he Zubiri won squarely in Maguindanao province during the 2007 elections. Other senators who resigned Manglapus was elected to the Senate in 1987 but resigned during the same year to serve as secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) during the term of the late President Corazon Aquino. On the other hand, Guingona was re-elected to the Senate in 1998 but left his post in 2001 when he was appointed vice president by then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Aquino, meanwhile, won a Senate seat in 2007 but had to step down to assume the presidency last year. But aside from the three mentioned by Larrazabal, Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and the late senator Blas Ople also won Senate seats but vacated them to assume other posts. Lim was elected into the Senate in 2004 but stepped down to run for the city mayorship in 2007. Ople, like Manglapus, won his second senatorial term in 1998 but decided to leave his seat in 2002 after then-President Arroyo appointed him DFA secretary. Senators serve for six years and can only run for the position twice consecutively. - Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMA News

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