‘No compelling reason for me to give Leni a Cabinet post’ – Rody

President-elect Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday said he is “non-committal” about giving a Cabinet post to vice president elect Leni Robredo because he is friends with Sen. Bongbong Marcos. Photo by Marc Jayson Cayabyab

PRESIDENT-ELECT Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday said he is “non-committal” about including Vice President-elect Leni Robredo in his Cabinet because he and her rival candidate Sen. Bongbong Marcos are friends.

In a press conference at the presidential guest house in Davao City, Duterte said it is the “political reality” that he is friends with Marcos, noting that his father was a Cabinet member of the administration of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Bongbong’s father.

“Non-committal ako diyan kasi kilala ko si Bongbong. I know Bongbong Marcos. I don’t want to hurt him. Leni will understand, she’s from the opposite side,” Duterte said of Robredo, who was proclaimed as Vice-President elect running under the outgoing administration’s Liberal Party.

He noted that he lost heavily in Robredo’s territory in Bicol but he won by a landslide in the “Solid North” Ilocos, the bailiwick of Marcos.

He clarified, however, that political alliances, not his poor votes in Bicol, were the reasons Robredo was not given a Cabinet seat.

“There’s no compelling reason for me to accommodate the Vice President. I’m sorry,” Duterte said.

Robredo, the widow of Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo who died in a plane crash in 2012, defeated  Marcos Jr. in the vice presidential race.

Robredo won with 14,418,817 votes or just 263,473 votes apart from Marcos who got 14,155,344. Marcos’ camp is mulling an electoral protest, alleging massive cheating.