Seems like the dare is turning out to be pretty serious. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has accepted the counter-offer of the opposition, specifically of Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan to make Vice President Leni Robredo assume the post of this administration’s drug czar not only for “six months”, but for the last half of Duterte’s term, that is, until 2022.
And the only reason why Duterte is delegating to Mrs. Robredo this post? Without mincing his words, Duterte referred to Mrs. Robredo’s propensity to talk. She talks, she must know how to solve the problem, Duterte opines.
And if Mrs. Robredo does not accept this challenge? “Then I’ll campaign against her,” threatens Duterte, as if Robredo already threw her hat unto the 2022 presidential derby.
That’s the problem with the opposition–they are amateurs when it comes to war.
What turned out to be just an innocent interview for Robredo became an excellent escape route for Mr. Duterte. Let’s admit it—Robredo’s Reuters interview is intended to further worsen the image and reputation of the Duterte administration before the eyes of the world by commenting negatively against the botched drugs war and puts the entire blame on the shoulders of the president.
Now, the onus has now shifted–from the president’s to Robredo’s. All eyes are now trained at Robredo, first, whether she’ll accept the dare or second, if she indeed accepts, and fails, what’s going to happen?
By sharing the burden, Duterte has conveniently distanced himself from the debacle which he himself created in the first place. During the presidential campaign, it was only him who politicized this health and criminal issue. No other bet has done what Duterte did out of obvious reasons— the problem is deep-seated, highly complicated and somewhat impossible to root out from its core. The fact that this drug problem has become the worst that ever struck or happen to the Philippines, show you how stupid one becomes the minute you give your word that you have a solution that would totally eradicate this scourge within a period of time. You must be nuts, says the anti-drugs body even of the world’s strongest state–the United States.
It would have been pretty awesome for the opposition, specifically to Robredo’s had she kept her mouth shut and just wait for something outside of her to happen before she gave that negative assessment.
To make matters worst, Robredo is still insisting that Malacanan declares the drug war “a failure” before she even tries to posit a solution or solutions. Is Robredo not listening or she now suffers from comprehension problems?
Haven’t the opposition realized that the most damning charge the public ever heaped upon it is that perennial complaint of them “being all talk, and not strutting the walk”? These Yellowtards are propaganda creations— pretending to be all paragons of morality when in truth and in fact, they also took a big part of the corruption pie during the administration of Benigno S. Aquino III. That they are no different from these scumbags that now infest the Philippine bureaucracy is too glaring and too lucid for the masses not to see.
On the other hand…
If I’m Robredo, I’ll take on the challenge and make it a centerpiece of sorts for my eventual presidential campaign come 2022. In a way, she can very well resurrect her husband whose anti-drugs advocacy was part of the reasons why he won and became popular as a major of Naga.
Jesse Robredo was perceived to be a “no-nonsense” guy who hated drugs. There was even a rumor back then that his death was not an accident but a conspiracy of sorts by generals close to the Powers-That-Be at that time who were all involved deeply into the narcotics business.
Taking on the challenge would be good for Robredo.
