MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo has been “all talk” since her appointment as the co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD), House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said on Monday.
Last week, President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Robredo to co-head the government’s committee against illegal drug, a post which the Vice President has accepted.
READ: Robredo accepts drug czar post offer
Since then, Robredo had been floating several ideas to address the country’s drug war, including the scrapping the “Oplan Tokhang,” as well as opening the campaign against illegal drugs to a United Nations’ probe.
This did not sit well with Cayetano, saying that newly-appointed officials usually buckle down to work first and “then do the talking later.”
READ: Robredo calls for scrapping of ‘Oplan Tokhang’
“I’ve been monitoring the last three days and parang from Oplan Tokhang, naging Operation All Talk,” Cayetano said in an interview over CNN Philippines.
“I guess it just so happen that the Vice President is a favorite of the media or she likes media exposure,” he added.
READ: Robredo to meet with UN execs to research on illegal drug issues
He added that Robredo was “starting on the wrong mouth” considering that the Vice President has yet to call a briefing from all agencies but she already has “all these ideas and criticisms.”
“Now she’s saying magpapa-briefing sa lahat ng department at lahat ng agencies, eh hindi pa pala nagb-briefing, so why already all these ideas and criticisms?” Cayetano said.
(She’s saying that she wants a briefing from all departments and agencies. There hasn’t been a briefing yet so why all these ideas and criticisms already?)
Cayetano said that politics and debates on whether or not the drug war is successful should already stop.
While he acknowledges that Robredo must be respected now that she co-chairs the ICAD, Cayetano said that the Vice President should also “respect the work that has been done for the last four years.”
“The success of ICAD and Vice President Leni is the success of the whole country. The failure is not only her failure but failure natin lahat (of us all),” the House leader said.
“Dapat tanggalin ang politics whether from the opposition or the administration when it comes to the drug war (Politics, from both the opposition and administration, should be removed when it comes to the drug war),” he added.
Edited by JE