President Rodrigo Duterte. FILE PHOTO / TOTO LOZANO / PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has fired Vice President Leni Robredo from her post as co-chair of the Inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD).
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea confirmed this to reporters on Sunday evening, as well as Duterte’s spokesman Salvador Panelo in a separate statement.
According to Panelo, it was the President’s response to the dare of the opposition to fire her due to a lack of trust.
Panelo claimed that Robredo wasted an opportunity and used the post “as a platform to attack the methods” undertaken by the Duterte administration.
“Such tack was even motivated by hubris to prove their past arguments against the anti-illegal drug operations were correct. It at once crumbled as her request for police data validated the falsity of their arguments that the extra-judicial killings are state-sponsored,” he said.
Panelo also pointed out Robredo’s alleged failure to seek an audience with Duterte to clarify the scope of her powers as an ICAD co-chair.
“As always, she talked – not with her appointing authority – but right in front of the cameras asking the President on her supposed mandate,” she said.
He also took a swipe at Robredo’s meeting with the United Nation and US Embassy officials.
“If VP Robredo is really serious in addressing the cause of the drug problem, she should have gone down to the grassroots – talking to the victims, to their families, and to the communities. Instead, she opted to have an audience with the United Nations and the United States embassy officials, who remain out-of-touch from the realities of the local drug problem on the ground,” he noted.
Panelo added that Robredo only resorted to “unduly baiting international attention” on the Duterte administration’s drug war.
This is despite Duterte’s apology to Robredo for believing in a “fake news” that she had invited UN probers to look into his brutal war on drugs.
Panelo further claimed that Robredo, while co-chair of ICAD for nearly three weeks, “has not presented any new program that she envisioned to implement.”
“In a campaign where people’s lives are at risk, a day is an eternity. The government can not twiddle its thumb and sit idly hoping for a flash of brilliance from the Vice President,” Duterte’s mouthpiece said.
“It is time to put the issue to eternal rest and bury it in the graveyard of what could have been, as well as dismiss any obstacle that impedes the government to focus on the issue at hand,” he added.
The Vice President, however, has said that she has already submitted three reports to Duterte’s office since she accepted the role of an ICAD co-chair.
Duterte earlier said he will fire the opposition stalwart if she discloses confidential information to foreign entities in connection with his brutal war on drugs.
Edited by KGA