‘Irate’ Duterte dares VP to take over war on drugs
MANILA: A visibly irate President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte challenged Vice President Leni Robredo to take over the war on illegal drugs for six months following her stand that he should allow the UN to investigate the bloody and violent campaign that killed more than 6,000 mostly poor people.
“Now, if you’re beter than me, I’ll hand you full powers over the drug (war). I will give you six months. Let’s see if you can handle it,” Duterte told Malacanang Palace reporters in an interview on Monday in addressing the challenge to Robredo.
On Tuesday, Robredo has yet to respond to the Duterte challenge but a senior opposition lawmaker, Senator Francis Pangilinan, apparently took up the cudgels for the vice president and asked Duterte why he should only give her only six months.
“Why only six months, make it three years,” Pangilisan said in a statement in Filipino, referrng to the remaining three years in Duterte’s six year term that is to end in 2022 without reelection as mandated by the Constitution.
Pangilinan recalled recalled that Duterte launched the war three years ago when he took over Malacanang Palace in June 2016, and it is just fair for him to give Robredo the remaining three years to take over the law enforcement in the war on drugs.
In doing so, Pangilinan expressed optimism that Robredo would succeed especially in the killings of mostly poor people, also the subject of criticisms and denunciations of alleged rampant human rights violations in the war on drugs.
Also on Tuesday, Salvador Panelo, the presidential spokesman, stressed that Duterte was serious in making to challenge to Robredo, saying: “He would even write to her. Why will he do that if he isn’t serious?” Panelo was referring to Duterte’s statement in his interview with Malacanang Palace reporters that he would ask Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to formally write a leter to Robredo regarding the challenge.
In an earlier interview with Reuters, Robredo said the government should allow the UN to investigate the campaign that killed more than 6,000 people, according to an official estimate of the Philippine National Police. (PNP).