Robredo: PH better off listening to Gaviria

Vice President Ma. Leonor “Leni” Robredo YUJI VINCENT GONZALES/INQUIRER.net

The government will be better off listening to leaders like former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria and learning from his experience than dismissing him as an idiot, Vice President Leni Robredo said on Thursday.

Taking a diametrically opposite view from President Duterte, Robredo said it would not hurt to listen to the words of the Colombian, who, in an opinion piece for the New York Times, warned the Philippine leader that he might be making the same mistake in pursuing a bloody war on drugs with state forces.

“I hope the government will hear the story and experiences of the people who have been through the same plight, so we will not repeat their mistakes,” she told reporters at the headquarters of the Office of the Vice President in Quezon City.

It was her first press conference since quitting Mr. Duterte’s Cabinet in December over policy and political differences.

Robredo, one of few government officials who had been vocal in criticizing the government’s drug war, said it was important to take heed of Gaviria’s advice “because he went through the same track.”

In his piece, Gaviria, the president of Colombia from 1990 to 1994 under whose administration the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed, wrote that the war on drugs could not be won by the military and police forces alone.