MANILA, Philippines — For Human Rights Watch Philippines (HRW Philippines), President Rodrigo Duterte “was never even remotely sincere” in appointing Vice President Leni Robredo as co-chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD).
HRW Asia researcher Carlos Conde said Robredo “barely warmed her seat” when Duterte fired her. Duterte appointed Robredo as an ICAD co-chair on October 31. The Vice President accepted her appointment on November 6, thus, serving in ICAD for merely 18 days.
“Was his offer of involving her in finding solutions to the situation of drugs in the Philippines ever really serious? He didn’t even give Robredo the chance to show what she could do to make the campaign against drugs effective and, most important, non-violent and rights-respecting,” Conde said in a statement posted on Twitter.
In confirming Robredo’s dismissal from the ICAD post, presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo claimed that Robredo wasted an opportunity and used the post “as a platform to attack the methods” undertaken by the Duterte administration.
But Conde said that: “By firing her on such ludicrous grounds, Duterte reveals he was never even remotely sincere and exposes his game to appoint her as a total sham.”
According to Conde, “Robredo does a great service to the Filipino people and her country by continuing her strong criticism of the rights-abusing ‘drug war’ and demanding accountability for the perpetrators of these crimes against human rights.”
Following her dismissal, Robredo asked what the administration is afraid that she might discover and added she would soon report to the public what she has discovered during her stint as an ICAD co-chair.
Robredo assured that her dismissal from the anti-drug panel won’t dampen her determination to stop the killings in the name of the drug war.
tags: Leni Robredo, Carlos Conde, Rodrigo Duterte, ICAD