MANILA, Philippines—President Rodrigo Duterte has apologized to Vice President Leni Robredo for believing a “fake news” that she had invited a UN prosecutor to probe his administration’s brutal war on drugs.
“If she says that’s false news ako I believe her. And I am sorry because I said you only realize that it is false news when the news comes out. And you hear it and you talk about it, you react to it, that is the problem,” Duterte told reporters in an interview in Davao City on Saturday.
Duterte, however, stressed that he still does not trust Robredo, whom he recently appointed as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Illegal Drugs, on the basis that she belongs to the opposition.
“There can never be a trust that can be nurtured between the two of us for the simple reason that Leni Robredo is with the opposition, ako andito sa kabila (I belong to the other side),” he said.
The President said he decided not to appoint Robredo to a Cabinet rank position for supposedly committing “missteps,” including her alleged reaching out to foreign personalities critical of his war on drugs.
But Robredo denied that she had invited UN prosecutors to visit the country and made it clear that she only met with officials of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the United States Embassy in Manila to tackle the drug war.