Melting the ice
He finished third in the home province of Leni Robredo, so President Duterte cannot say that he got zero votes in the turf of the former Camarines Sur congresswoman.
Still, third is third, and landing third in a field of five is not going to endear Camarines Sur politicians to a man who obtained a strong mandate from other parts of the country including the most vote-rich region, Metro Manila.
Vice President Robredo has been reaching out to Duterte, but he looks determined to relegate the VP to her constitutionally specified role as a spare tire.
Duterte knows this is within his prerogative. A president wants to work with persons of his confidence. This is true especially for members of his Cabinet, who serve as his alter ego.
If he had won by a plurality, like Fidel Ramos who persuaded him to seek the presidency, Duterte would probably be open to giving a Cabinet-level post to a vice president from a rival party. FVR made his hugely popular VP Joseph Estrada the chief crime buster – a challenging assignment, considering the enormity of the kidnapping problem at the time in Metro Manila and several other areas.
The assignment boosted the popularity not only of Erap but also the cop he picked as his chief enforcer, Panfilo Lacson. Using methods similar to Duterte’s, minus the jokes and braggadocio of “Bato” de la Rosa, the taciturn Lacson personally led operations to “neutralize” (his word) the most notorious kidnapping and robbery gangs.
It’s testament to the appeal of such methods in this country that the crime-busting assignment helped catapult Erap to the presidency by a landslide after FVR, and later sent Lacson to the Senate after Erap’s ouster.
Probably because he once served as vice president, Erap gave his own VP a regular Cabinet portfolio. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s stint as social welfare secretary, free of controversy, helped project her as a workaholic, a dedicated even if notoriously crochety public servant.
That image made GMA a desirable alternative to Erap as his hedonistic ways became a national embarrassment. After the excitement provided by the colorful Erap, Pinoys wanted the seemingly bland GMA.
* * * Recollecting these events will probably make Duterte even less inclined to give his VP a chance to shine. The last thing he would want is to have a palatable alternative to himself casting a shadow over his controversial moves on the road to his promised “real change.”
The inclination would be even less because Robredo was the running mate of Mar Roxas, standard bearer of the Liberal Party, which Duterte deems responsible for all the negative reports about him during the campaign – stories that he had cancer, stories about the high crime rate in Davao City and, in the final weeks, the furor over his bank deposits.
That cancer story, incidentally, is also one of the reasons why Duterte has said there are corrupt journalists serving partisan interests.
Duterte has so far made the right noises about working for national unity. But you can sense a hostility simmering just below the surface toward those who were closely identified with the LP and Roxas’ campaign.
Yesterday the casualties were the police officers who openly supported Roxas. The administration will surely deny that politics influenced the identification by no less than the President, on national TV, of five police generals supposedly involved in drug deals. But at least one of the generals raised the fact that he was among the officers seen at a meeting for Roxas at the Novotel.
Duterte, being a former prosecutor, will not open his mouth unless he has something solid to back his serious accusation. And reacting to that detail about the Novotel meeting, he can brush it aside and say that the basic question is whether or not the generals engaged in drug deals. But there are people who will still see politics in the police officers’ public “humiliation,” as Duterte himself described his announcement.
* * * Since Robredo was proclaimed as the Vice President and speculation started about whether she would get a Cabinet position in the new administration, Duterte has repeatedly said that his supporters would get priority in his appointments.
Considering his personality, I think it would be counterproductive to nag him about giving his VP a Cabinet post, which certain quarters known to be supportive of Robredo are doing.
Anyway, Robredo has already said she did not expect any position to be offered by Duterte. And she seems to be embarking on the proper advocacies – women empowerment, poverty alleviation. If we go by the personalities and groups that backed her campaign, she can expect strong support from the private sector.
She has made an effort to melt the ice and reassure the President of her support. It might help that she has reportedly said she does not want to be the leader of the Liberal Party, which looks set to become the new opposition group. The LP can instead have either former president Noynoy Aquino or Roxas as its head.
Robredo has her own constituency, which Duterte can tap in case he changes his mind and decides to improve their working relationship.
She may be relegated to the role of spare tire, not even assigned to cut ceremonial ribbons, but the Vice President is Duterte’s constitutional successor.
A good performer will shine, anyway, with or without his help.