MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo believes the Duterte administration is not serious about fighting the war against illegal drugs and government corruption.
“Para sa akin, parang hindi sila seryoso. Parang hindi sila seryoso kasi apparent naman yung pagkukulang eh,” the Vice President said of the current administration’s efforts against illegal drugs during the second part of her interview for the GMA Network news program “The Mangahas Interviews” aired Friday.
(For me, they are not that serious. It appears they are not serious because the flaws are apparent.)
“Apparent yung pagkukulang pero yung solution, hindi madali pero doable, pero ayaw gawin,” she added.
(The flaws are apparent. The solutions are hard to achieve, but doable.)
Robredo added that her stint as co-chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) for 18 days gave her the feeling that the administration was not serious about the issue.
READ: BREAKING: Robredo accepts drug czar post offer
READ: BREAKING: Duterte fires Robredo from ICAD
But as a final contribution, she also made some suggestions about how to solve the drug problem, which she gave after leaving ICAD.
“Kaya siyang ayusin, mahirap pero kaya. Kung may willingness lang na ayusin yung programa pero hindi ko ‘yun nakikita,” she said.
(It can be fixed, it’s hard, but it can be done. If there is only a willingness to fix the program, but I don’t see it.)
The Philippine National Police had counted up to 6,000 dead in the anti-drug operation. However, human rights organizations say the figure is at least four times higher.
Lack of transparency
Besides the drug war, Robredo also expressed her view that the administration has not shown significant improvement in the corruption battle.
“Yung corruption kasi parang madali lang sabihin na against ako sa any form of corruption, pero ‘yung corruption kasi marami levels na kailangan mo ayusin. Ang number one doon is transparency, and walang any indication na gusto maging transparent,” she said.
(When it comes to corruption, it’s easy to say that you are against any form of corruption, but corruption has many levels that you need to fix. The first is transparency, and there is no indication that they want to be transparent.)
As an example, she spoke about the new executive order Duterte signed implementing the freedom of information, saying: “Nagkaroon ng executive order, yung FOI, pero hindi naman seryoso yung effort to make everything transparent.”
(There was an executive order, the FOI, but the efforts to make everything transparent were not taken seriously by the administration.)
READ: Duterte signs FOI order
Robredo also said that government officials implicated in corrupt practices were reassigned elsewhere.
“A huge part of an anti-corruption drive is accountability pero nakikita naman natin na maraming implicated na sa corruption na tatanggalin pero ililiipat sa ibang position so parang alam mo ‘yun, ano ‘yung point?” she said.
(A huge part of an anti-corruption drive is accountability but if you look at it, there are so many implicated in corruption where they will be sacked but will only be appointed in another position. So what’s the point?)