Robredo pushes back vs Duterte rant on her typhoon aid efforts

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo on Wednesday called out President Rodrigo Duterte for his “misogynistic” and “unpresidential” attacks against her, debunking his claims about her efforts to help victims of recent typhoons.

She also said the President had allowed himself to be surrounded by “fake news peddlers” who gave him wrong information about her activities that triggered his angry rant on national television.

It was one of the few instances when Robredo openly rebutted Mr. Duterte’s statements against her.

In a 20-minute rant late Tuesday night, the President scored Robredo, falsely accusing her of insinuating that he was nowhere to be found when Typhoon “Ulysses” (international name: Vamco) struck last week, causing massive floods in northern Luzon. He was referring to the Twitter hashtag “#NasaanAngPangulo” (WhereIsthePresident) that was trending on social media.

“I would like to just give a caution to the Vice President,” he said as he opened a meeting of the national task force on COVID-19. “She made a blunder, a big one, and she practically lied, making her incapable of truth. You know her ploy that I wasn’t around during the typhoon … I was here.”

He said he was attending the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the Vice President was aware of that.

“There was no need for you to make … a very bad joke asking, ‘Where were you?’” the President said. “What then if I ask you what time did you go home? … Do you stay in just one house? Two houses? … And which house did you stay in longer?”

Twitter reply

Robredo promptly replied to these remarks by the President on Twitter on Tuesday night, saying: “When a President is a misogynist, the conversation goes down to this level. This is what we’ve been doing every night, we’ve had sleepless nights for the past weeks just so we can bring aid to those in need.”

Duterte told Robredo that “you are not in the line of authority,” saying he as President commanded the military and police and headed the bureaucracy, and the Vice President had no role in those functions.

“Do not compete with me and do not start a quarrel with me because you really did nothing except to make those phone calls,” he said. “You pretend to call asking, ‘Have the helicopters taken off?’ Of course, they would say yes. Your question would suggest the answer.”

Fake news peddlers

He later suggested to Robredo that if she became president to buy “plenty of swimsuits and start to swim when the floods come.” He said last week that he had wanted to swim in the flood with the people to show his presence but he was disallowed by presidential security officers.

The Vice President rejected Duterte’s claims that she was looking for him when the typhoon hit the country.

“He was being fed wrong information. I wasn’t the one who started the #NasaanAngPangulo hashtag. I never questioned his absence because I knew he was attending the Asean teleconference,” Robredo told the Inquirer while on a visit to Ragay town in Camarines Sur province on Wednesday. “He is obviously surrounded by fake news peddlers.”

She pointed out that the same hashtag had also been used on former President Benigno Aquino III.

“These series of events show that the peddlers of fake news surround the President. And I think it’s a big blunder for the President to react that way because he is reacting to false information,” she said. “For me, my request is: Let’s not add to the multitude of peddlers of fake news among us.”

The Vice President, her staff and volunteers from Metro Manila arrived at 9 a.m. in Ragay to distribute relief supplies for victims of Ulysses.

She reminded the President that this was “not the right time to be onion-skinned” about criticisms. “We are in the middle of a crisis. The people’s complaints, that is normal,” she said.

Robredo also pushed back on Duterte’s threats to give her a “nightmare” if she runs for president in the next elections.

The President said he had “a lot of things” that he wanted to disclose about the Vice President.

“I would just reserve it. When you start your campaign, if you run for president, I will wash you down good. This is your nightmare,” he said.

Criticisms welcomed

Reacting to the threat, Robredo said she welcomed criticisms from the President.

“That’s his right. He can criticize me whenever he wants, but to threaten me with something like that is so unpresidential,” she told the Inquirer. “He can criticize me as long as it’s factual and has a basis.”

She also called out Salvador Panelo, the president’s legal counsel, for claiming that she used a military C-130 cargo plane to visit Catanduanes to distribute relief packs from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, saying this was “100-percent fake news.”

Panelo later apologized, saying he got the information from Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who also apologized to the Vice President.

Most people in the national capital and the rest of the country learned about the massive flood that engulfed Cagayan Valley after Ulysses left Luzon only on Friday night and Saturday morning when social media began to be swamped with posts reporting and showing pictures and videos of people huddled on rooftops.

Robredo on Friday night said her office was “taking note of all calls for help and forwarding them to rescue teams on the ground.”

Rescue coordination

In a series of tweets from Friday night to early Saturday, Robredo said she coordinated with the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police for possible rescue operations. According to her, rescue teams faced strong flood currents.

Detained Sen. Leila de Lima poked fun at the President’s “meltdown,” describing his statements against Robredo as the drunken ravings of someone who just got up from bed.

“I heard that Duterte lost his temper last night. There is a [Filipino] saying: Make fun of the drunk but not those who just woke up,” she said in a post on Twitter on Wednesday.

“While VP Leni is busy helping our people, the old man is busy being rude,” De Lima said in a statement from her cell at Camp Crame, where she is detained on what she calls trumped-up drug trading charges.

“If President Duterte can use his bravado to serve our nation instead of politicking, he would not be so insecure of the likes of VP Leni who are diligent, effective and useful,” she said in Filipino. “Duterte’s sickening misogyny is beyond reputation.”

Focus on helping people

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, president of the Liberal Party, which Robredo chairs, and Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon both called for unity and cooperation during the pandemic and the aftermath of the typhoon.

“We should all just focus on helping our people, instead of making up stories and quarreling,” Pangilinan said.

Drilon said: “We can and we should rise above politics during these trying times.”

But former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV minced no words for Mr. Duterte.

“Back off, you lazy, incompetent fool! VP Leni did her duty and more,” he said on Twitter.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said he was staying out of the quarrel between the two highest officials of the land.

“I’d rather not jump into their fray. My 32 years of political experience tells me not to,” he told reporters in a Viber message.

—With reports from Jerome Aning, Nestor Corrales and DJ Yap