Robredo learns the art of war

Update

When her daughter Tricia was contending for valedictorian honors in high school a few years ago, Leni Robredo did not waste time on motherly words of encouragement.

Instead, according to her eldest Aika, Robredo gave the girl a copy of Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.”

These days, one would probably not be surprised to find the Chinese classic on Robredo’s own bedside table.

One year into office, the widow of Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo is slowly and painfully learning the ways of political warfare, as she strikes a delicate balance between her two roles as the constitutional successor to President Duterte and an opposition leader from the Liberal Party (LP).

It has not been an easy 12 months for this outsider Vice President.

“Her first eight to 10 months, she was moving one step forward and two steps back,” said political analyst Richard Heydarian, who criticized Robredo’s “lack of fire” in confrontations with Mr. Duterte and her failure to create an independent political base beyond her Liberal affiliations.

Fighting for every scrap

Robredo, in the analyst’s view, had all too quickly expended the goodwill that existed between her and the President, thus losing her early advantages as a rookie leader thrust into a position of power.

Out of the Cabinet and with only a paltry share of resources, she is now fighting for every scrap of space and relevance in an administration that is suspicious of her leanings and motivations.

It was only in the past month, Heydarian said, when Robredo finally found stable footing and began making astute decisions, such as her qualified declaration of support for martial law in Mindanao and her high-profile visits to Marawi refugees in Lanao del Norte.

Earl Parreño of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform was more generous in his assessment of Robredo’s freshman year as the No. 2 leader.

“I think she acted as how Vice Presidents should act,” he said in a separate interview. “She was supportive of [Mr. Duterte] in areas where the President needed support. She was critical on some issues and policies. She was not disruptive; she was very constructive in her criticisms.”

Though she’s the titular head of LP, Robredo has made a point of setting herself apart from the so-called “yellow” establishment, which has both helped her and hurt her, according to pundits.

In a June interview, she said: “I don’t really see myself as an opposition to all the policies of government. I have always said that I think we need to be supportive of this administration, as the times call for it.”

Army of partisans

This, however, has not stopped the attacks by Robredo’s enemies.

Mr. Duterte’s small army of believers has been targeting her vulnerabilities, from her association with yellow forces to her out-of-the-country trips (including a recent quiet departure to the United States while Mr. Duterte was conspicuously out of the public eye).

On the legal front, she is battling former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has questioned the legitimacy of her electoral victory before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal. Robredo beat the late dictator’s son by a little more than 260,000 votes last year.

Marcos’ own defenders have taken it upon themselves to attack Robredo on social media, pouncing on her every misstep, large, small or imagined.

“Rarely have we seen a Vice President so viciously attacked by online trolls,” said Heydarian, who was convinced that an organized, systematic propaganda campaign was being waged against Robredo online.

On the government side, Mr. Duterte’s allies, including Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, openly threatened to impeach her for “betraying the public trust” when she spoke out against the administration’s bloody drug war in an international forum.

It was Mr. Duterte himself who set the tone for how Robredo was to be treated on Day 1 of his presidency when he refused to take his oath by her side, in deference, he said, to his good friend Marcos.

Not taking offense, Robredo was the picture of patience, sounding a rallying call for unity as she took her oath of office on July 1, 2016. “As Jesse used to say when he was alive: ‘What brings us together as a nation is far more powerful than what pulls us apart’,” she said.

The President was receptive to her friendly overtures — at first.

Within days of their first meeting as the top two officials of the land, Mr. Duterte welcomed Robredo to his official family by giving her the housing portfolio, a safe, traditional posting for Vice Presidents.

The former Camarines Sur congresswoman set to work, striving to eliminate red tape by revising rules in the processing of socialized housing projects and community mortgage program and reducing the number of documentary requirements from 27 to nine.

Her office provided low-cost housing for 46,000 families and paved the way for the construction of 17,000 more homes for victims of 2013’s super typhoon “Yolanda” in Eastern Visayas.

But her budding achievements in the housing sector were cut short in December, only five months after her appointment.

By then, Robredo had started contesting some of the President’s decisions and policies, including the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani and the extrajudicial killing of drug suspects.

Not a threat

In November, three days after Mr. Duterte drew accusations of sexism for commenting that he could not help but ogle at Robredo’s knees, she spoke to students about “unacceptable” sexual harassment in schools and the workplace.

Her criticisms were typically veiled, rarely mentioning Mr. Duterte by name at all. But the sting of her disapproval carried all the way to Malacañang.

Parreño said one of Robredo’s biggest failings in the past year was her inability to convince Mr. Duterte that she was not a threat to him.

“She never made it clear to the President that she’s not a politician and that she has no ambition to wrestle for his position. It’s a misstep in the sense that she knows Digong is easily influenced by intrigue. She should have neutralized that earlier on,” he said.

No wonder then that Mr. Duterte soon decided to shut her out of his Cabinet, forcing Robredo to resign.

At that point, “she should have been more indignant,” said Heydarian, complaining about Robredo’s anemic reaction to her ouster. “Instead she was smiling, extending the olive branch.”

“She lacked the element of fire. People were asking for fire,” he said.

In the Philippines, people desire two things in their leaders: The first is the lack of any taint of corruption; the second is political will.

While Mr. Duterte satisfies both conditions, Robredo fulfills only the first, Heydarian said. “Of course, that’s only Round 1. We have five years to go.”

On Dec. 8, Robredo demonstrated a bit of her fieriness when she declared her intent at an Inquirer forum to be “the unifying voice of all those who have expressed either disgust or opposition to the policies of this administration.”

Meanwhile, she continued reaching out to the poorest, farthest and smallest villages as part of her “Angat Buhay” program in collaboration with the private sector.

Since her office has very little funding, Robredo has been linking up with international groups, NGOs, schools and businesses to build classrooms, donate boats, and hold feeding programs in these communities. To date, the Office of the Vice President has extended help to 127 villages.

On March 16, she stirred a political firestorm when she sent a video message to a side meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs annual meeting in Vienna, in which she gave a blistering commentary about the government’s war on drugs.

The message coincided with the filing of the first impeachment complaint against Mr. Duterte, who was accused of masterminding the killing of some 8,000 suspected drug offenders, among other high crimes.

Mr. Duterte’s allies were instantly suspicious and outraged. Back-to-back impeachment complaints were filed against Robredo though neither of these secured the necessary endorsement from a member of the House.

Since then, Robredo has become more circumspect in her statements, careful not to directly antagonize the President.

“My sense is she’s evolving, but not fast enough,” Heydarian said of Robredo. “This is politics. The name of the game is evolution and adaptation.”

Parreño took a different view, saying Robredo was at least successful in “blurring the dichotomy between a politician and a public servant.”

“Under a democracy, a public servant should know how to play politics,” he said. “But being a politician should end when you’re elected. When you’re elected, your agenda should no longer be the narrow partisan interest of your party, but the interest of the people.”

“Leni has succeeded in this,” Parreño said.

Political fray

The past weeks have seen Robredo striving to stay above the political fray.

In May, she publicly expressed support for Mr. Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao even as she raised some questions about the basis for the proclamation and its parameters. Against expectations, she was silent on Mr. Duterte’s remarks about a possible extension.

In June, she stood in for the absent President during the Independence Day rites, looking regal and presidential, while everyone was wondering where the President could be. But she took care not to call any attention to it, saying she was sure Mr. Duterte had a good reason for not showing up.

Upon returning from a trip to the United States this week, she arranged for a visit to Marawi City to aid the victims of war.

She got only as far as Iligan City, but pundits said it was a big moment for her, as photographs of her comforting displaced residents gained wide traction in all media.

“That was an ‘in your face’ moment,” Heydarian said. “It seemed the message was: ‘Where is the President?’ without even mentioning him.  That was a huge statement by itself.”

After one year, Robredo may well have truly learned the ways of Sun Tzu, who says: “If [your enemy] is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.”

“If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.”