Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman. (File photo by EDWIN BACASMAS / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo was “not given the opportunity to prove her worth” as she was fired as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) barely after 18 days in the agency.
Opposition congressman and Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman said this Monday after Malacañang announced that President Rodrigo Duterte has removed Robredo from her post.
“Let us look at the villain and I think the one who appointed her and subsequently fired her could act as that kind of authority because she was not given the opportunity to prove her worth,” Lagman said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.
“She was not given the complete assistance to succeed, she was not given the necessary information which would guide her with her new role in order to innovate the solution to the drug problem,” he added.
According to Lagman, two weeks could be “too short” to assess the performance of the Vice President.
He also said he believes Robredo “was doing well in her job.”
“She was already coordinating with the members of ICAD as a matter of fact she met with the international community,” he said.
Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo earlier slammed Robredo’s meetings with anti-drug representatives from the United Nations (UN) and the United States Embassy.
“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,” Panelo said in an earlier statement.
“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 added.
The Palace official also said that the vice president supposedly onlyresorted to “unduly baiting international attention” on the Duterte administration’s drug war.
But Lagman defended Robredo and said that meeting with the international anti-drug officials was one of the many approaches in addressing the country’s drug problem.
“One of the approaches to the problem is to enlist the help of international organizations who are in the first place already helping the country with respect to solving the drug problem,” he said.
“Most probably the Vice President can put up now new solutions to the problem but she was not given a chance to prove what she could do,” he added.