STRAIGHT TALKER Vice President Leni Robredo, cochair of Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs, meets with Dangerous Drugs Board officials on Wednesday after being denied Cabinet rank by President Duterte. It doesn’t matter to her, she says. “Whatever job I’m asked to do, I will do it.” —PHOTO FROM OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
Want her to quit? Just say the word.
But until then, Vice President Leni Robredo said she had no plans of leaving her post as cochair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs despite President Duterte’s public skewering of her two-week performance on Tuesday night.
“He should be direct with me [if he wants me out]. I’m a straight talker. If he does not want me here in the first place, why did he appoint me? If he does not want me here anymore … and wants to take back the appointment, he should just say the word,” Robredo told reporters on Wednesday.
But without any such directive, the Vice President said she intended to serve on the counternarcotics committee despite Duterte’s verbal attacks.
“It is always worth working for something you believe in. For me, I believe I have much to contribute to the campaign against illegal drugs,” Robredo said.
At an evening news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Duterte unleashed a torrent of abuse against Robredo, calling her “scatterbrain” for talking to officials of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the US Embassy about the drug campaign, and accusing her of “grandstanding” in front of the media.
Quite baffled
Robredo said she was quite baffled by the President’s remark that he couldn’t trust her with a Cabinet portfolio not only because she was in the political opposition but also because he didn’t know her.
“I couldn’t understand because it’s hard to understand why would he appoint me if he didn’t trust me?” said Robredo, chair of the opposition Liberal Party.
The Vice President spoke to reporters after Wednesday’s meeting with officials of the Dangerous Drugs Board, the latest in a whirlwind of activities since she took office.
As the nominal head of the opposition, Robredo’s acceptance of a lead role in the war on drugs triggered a political firestorm, with allies of Mr. Duterte taking turns in attacking her and her new coworkers stonewalling her efforts to gain access to sensitive information.
She was rebuffed after trying to secure a copy of the government’s list of high-value targets in the drug war.
Malacañang also flip-flopped on whether the Vice President’s position on the interagency committee, which she shared with Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Aaron Aquino, was Cabinet rank or not.
Duterte initially offered a six-month position to Robredo as the “drug czar” after he took offense at her statements criticizing the government’s drug war. He later changed the offer to a permanent post on the counternarcotics committee.
The President had promised that the post would be Cabinet rank but backtracked on Tuesday, saying he could not trust her to honor the confidentiality of discussions in Cabinet meetings.
He said Robredo would be given information on the war on drugs only on a “need-to-know” basis.
As co-chair of the interagency committee on narcotics, she could give directions and provide guidance, he said. “But you do not have to go there and waggle inside the law-enforcement process.”
Duterte said he was just setting the “parameters” by keeping Robredo out of the Cabinet and allowing her access only to information she needed to know.
Not firing her
He said he could not allow Robredo access to information that members of her party could use to prepare her for the 2022 presidential election.
The President said he was not firing Robredo from the interagency committee.
“I never said I’m firing her. I said I decided not to appoint her as a Cabinet member because I think I will jeopardize the whole situation, including records, classified, which are secrets, they call state secrets,” he said.
On Wednesday, Robredo reminded Mr. Duterte that she never sought a Cabinet position, adding that it didn’t matter to her if the job did not come with the rank of secretary.
“I never asked to be co-chair of [the anti-illegal drugs committee]. It was an appointment offered to me. So whatever job I’m asked to do, I will do it. But it doesn’t matter to me whether this is a Cabinet post or not,” Robredo said.
In fact, she said, Aquino offered to brief her on confidential matters on Wednesday morning.
“I refused. I told him I would wait for the President to clarify the scope of my mandate, because I didn’t want to be accused of exceeding my mandate,” she said.
Robredo also branded as “fake news” reports suggesting she had invited the counsel of former Human Rights Watch Asia Director Phelim Kine, who had volunteered to advise her on “how to end this murderous drug war,” and recommended Duterte’s arrest in a post on Twitter.
Threat to slap Kine
Duterte dared Robredo to invite Kine to come to the Philippines so that he could slap him in the face with the daily brief on counternarcotics operations.
“I dare you, invite him. I will tell immigration, let him in. I dare you. If you’re really dedicated, make that son of a bitch come here. I will go to your office, I will slap him in front of you with this,” he said, holding up the drugs briefer.
Robredo said the President might have been fed wrong information after he expressed anger over her supposed invitation to Kine to come to the country.
She said the only foreign officials she had met were those from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the US Embassy.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, an adviser to Robredo in the campaign against drugs, said Duterte’s tirades against her only meant he wanted to take her out of the interagency committee.
“If the Commander in Chief, who is also the commander in chief of all [law-enforcement agencies] in the country, has openly declared that he doesn’t trust her, what does she expect from all 20 member agencies of [the committee]?” Lacson said.
“Obviously the President wants her out without firing her, meaning he is leaving it up to her to take the initiative and [resign],” he added.
Weighing her options
Lacson said he believed Robredo, who is only three weeks into her job on the committee, could already be weighing her options.
“[She] should make her decision sooner than later. I think her position has become untenable,” he said.
“Responsibility without commensurate authority is a guaranteed formula for failure,” he added.
Former President Benigno Aquino III asked what Duterte’s intentions were in appointing Robredo to the committee if he didn’t trust her.
“Let’s go back to the criteria for appointing [officials],” Aquino said. “As former President, the [first criterion] for appointment for me … is that I trusted the [official]. I believed that this [official] could do the [job]. If those things are absent, why appoint the [official] at all?”
He reminded Duterte that he appointed Robredo to the committee despite her being in the opposition. “You appointed her. Why would you appoint someone you don’t trust?” he asked.
Aquino joined other members of the Liberal Party in an indignation run at the Commission on Human Rights to mark the 1,000th day of the “unjust detention” of Sen. Leila de Lima.