Philippines vice president alleges ousting plot

PHILIPPINEVice President Leni Robredo announced yesterday she would quit President Rodrigo Duterte’s cabinet after being told to stay away from its meetings, and said there was a plot to oust her as his deputy.

Robredo did not say who was behind the alleged plot to remove her as vice president. But she cited “major differences in principles and values” with Duterte, such as over the rash of extrajudicial killings during his “war on drugs” and the hero’s burial he granted for dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately. Duterte and Robredo come from rival parties.

“I had been warned of a plot to steal the Vice-Presidency. I have chosen to ignore this and focus on the job at hand. But the events of recent days indicate that this plot is now being set in motion,” Robredo said in a statement on her Facebook page.“I will not allow theVicePresidency to be stolen. I will not allow the will of the people to be thwarted,” despite leaving the cabinet.

“We received a text [SMS] message last Saturday from Cabinet Secretary [Leoncio] Evasco, relaying the President’s instruction . . . for me ‘to desist from attending all Cabinet meetings starting this Monday, December 5’.”

“This is the last straw, because it makes it impossible for me to perform my duties,” Robredo said.

She had been appointed to the cabinet as a housing official.

Duterte’s war on drugs has claimed thousands of lives and sparked international criticism, including from key ally the United States and the UN.

Duterte’s spokesman Martin Andanar, interviewed on ABS-CBN television yesterday, confirmed Robredo’s departure from the cabinet and cited “irreconcilable differences”.

Regarding the alleged plot to unseat her from the vice presidency, Andanar said: “If there is a plot, that plot did not come from the camp of the president.”

“Tomorrow, let us see if the president actually accepts her resignation [from the cabinet],” he added.

Evasco confirmed separately that he had sent Robredo a message, telling her not to attend further cabinet meetings on the instructions of Duterte.

He said there was no order to strip Robredo of her housing position.

Duterte won presidential elections in May after pledging to kill tens of thou- sands of drug suspects, warning that otherwise the Philippines would turn into a narco-state. Since he assumed office, some 4,800 people have been killed by police or attackers.

Other differences cited by Robredo were the government’s moves to bring back the death penalty, to lower the age of criminal liability to 9 and “sexual attacks against women”.

In the May elections for the vice presidency, Robredo, 51, narrowly defeated Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the son and namesake of the dictator who died in exile in 1989. But Marcos Jr, a key ally of Duterte, has a pending election protest which argues he was the real winner.

Robredo, originally a lawyer for the disadvantaged, rose to fame as the wife of respected cabinet member Jesse Robredo.