LAST week, Vice President and two-time (two time!) Vice President elections winner Leni Robredo was offered a spot as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) by the first telecommuting President in history, Rodrigo Duterte. We discussed this, and we concluded that it was a bad idea for Vice President Robredo to accept such a post. It was a means for the DDS propaganda machine to find new fault in Robredo, regardless of whether she’d succeed or fail.
It was, and still is, a trap.
And Vice President Robredo took the position anyway.
Reading the explanation offered by the Vice President, I can see her point and where she wants to take it. If she can save even one life, it’ll be worth the risk. I can get behind it.
Still, a trap.
Even now, every last Duterte lapdog has taken every opportunity to take potshots at the Vice President.
Sen. Ronald “Atapang Atao Sa Paputok Atakbo” Dela Rosa bluntly said, “Bawal ang pa-cute sa war on drugs.” Rich, coming from the guy who bawled like an infant with constipation each time he appeared before a legislative committee as head of the PNP, and whose iconic election campaign photo is him jumping on the stage like a clown without makeup. Not that he needed any to convey the idea of clownery.
Sen. Bong Go (is he actually a senator? He keeps following Duterte around like a manservant) has expressed fears that Vice President Robredo will “baby” drug lords as co-chair of the ICAD. Though I suppose he and Duterte would know all about “babying” drug lords. Michael Yang, Allan Lim, and Peter Lim all say “hi” from wherever alleged drug lords hang out and relax.
House Speaker and portable disco ball Alan Peter Cayetano claims he’s been “watching” the past few days of the “war on drugs” and thinks it’s been “all talk.” I wonder where he’s been for the past three years, as Duterte himself has admitted constantly that his own war on drugs has failed and that the number of addicts just keeps supposedly rising? I mean I get it, splitting residences with the wife to run for two separate congressional districts is time-consuming and requires attention and focus, but come on.
That’s not even counting the posts of all the insignificant internet trolls and trying-desperately-to-be-relevant DDS personalities who keep trying to ride Vice President Robredo’s coattails.
It makes me wonder. Shouldn’t the DDS and all of Duterte’s hangers-on want Vice President Robredo to succeed? After all, if she can change the policy direction of the war on drugs and make real headway in reducing drug trafficking and assisting addicts in rehabilitation and recovery, all while reducing drug-related killings to an absolute minimum, then isn’t that also a win for Duterte? Vice President or not, “dilawan” or not, Robredo “is” now a Duterte appointee of sorts. Anything she does redounds directly to Duterte’s benefit.
But, of course, they don’t want Vice President Robredo to succeed. How dare a “dilawan” succeed during the time of Duterte?
That is, perhaps, the key point to Vice President Robredo’s acceptance of this new pseudo-“drug czar” position. Being anti-Duterte was never about being pro-illegal drugs; only the DDS ever thinks in those bizarre absolutes. We can be anti-illegal drugs and be anti-Duterte. More importantly, to be anti-illegal drugs is, in and of itself, to be pro-Filipino.
That the DDS want Vice President Robredo to fail betrays their true sentiments. They are not pro-Filipino. They are just pro-Duterte.
Yes, accepting the ICAD co-chairship was a trap. But I was mistaken. It was a trap the DDS laid for themselves. And now they are struggling to get out of it.