An exercise of decisive leadership by Duterte

It all started when Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar last Sunday said that President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to bar Vice President Leni Robredo from attending Cabinet meetings was due to “irreconcilable differences.” This report was given credence when Cabinet Secretary Leoncio “Jun” Evasco Jr. admitted in informing Vice President Leni Robredo who is concurrently head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) to desist from attending cabinet meetings starting Dec. 5. But he insists that VP Robredo was not fired from her position in the HUDCC. Hmm, if she wasn’t fired then what happened here?

Sec. Jun Evasco said in an interview with dzMM. “If they cannot support what the president is doing, then they have to resign.” I fully agree with his statement, after all we do not want to see members of the Cabinet publicly opposing Pres. Duterte because the Cabinet must act in unison. Upon getting this report VP Robredo admitted that she has opposing views with Duterte but admitted that she hoped it would be patched by their mandate to serve the public.

Late Sunday afternoon, VP Robredo expressed her desire to resign from the Duterte Cabinet. She said, “This is the last straw, because it makes it impossible for me to perform my duties. Hence, I am tendering my resignation from the Cabinet on Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. With this resignation, you can expect that I will continue to support the positive initiatives of this administration and oppose those that are inimical to the people’s interest.”

No doubt VP Robredo was pushed to the wall. But she should have seen this coming to her. She was the voice of the opposition to the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos where she basked on the limelight thinking that the anti-Marcos rallies would boost her political stock. But for people like me, stoking the Marcos burial only helps fuel the 40-year old Marcos/Aquino feud, a feud that many Filipinos are totally fed up with!

Come on! After two Aquino presidencies, they could not even come up with a law to prevent Marcos from being buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNB) and when that finally happened, VP Robredo said they buried him “Like a thief in the night.” In short, VP Robredo cannot blame anyone but herself for she ranted against Pres. Duterte and there had to be some consequences and now it’s all over but the crying. But at least she had the decency to quit while the quitting is good. Unlike that other woman who has been accused of immorality and still doesn’t have the delicadeza to quit!

So now that she has quit her post in the Duterte administration, I would like to see her report as to what she has done in the HUDCC during the past five months? Honestly, I wasn’t really happy when she went to Tacloban to see how delayed was the housing there. I had a hunch that she knew why there were delays… and they were due to the previous administration and she couldn’t find it in her heart to chastise those involved in the construction of those delayed housing units for the victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda because they belonged to the same party.

So there’s an on-going debate whether VP Robredo was “fired” from her post, while another group insists that she has resigned. My take on this is she never did resign even after she opposed Pres. Duterte…. Until she got the word for her to no longer attend the Cabinet meetings. Let’s just say that she was forced to resign. Incidentally, Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Sec. Michael Dino who doesn’t have the housing portfolio has been to Tacloban many times in the past five months and quietly works to give the Yolanda survivors their homes that were denied them in the last three years.

VP Robredo isn’t by her lonesome. Apparently Malacañang Palace also confirmed that Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairperson Patricia Licuanan was asked also to no longer attend Cabinet meetings. Licuanan was an appointee of former President Benigno Aquino III and is serving a fixed term until 2018. However Licuanan said that she would remain in her post despite being barred from attending Cabinet meetings.

What just happened here is an exercise of decisive leadership by Pres. Duterte? It is not that he doesn’t tolerate dissent from within his ranks… but when one goes out to openly declare her position in public speeches I dare say that you are overdoing it. We expect the members of the Cabinet to be one in unison with the President and I would like to believe that there are members of the Cabinet that also believe that the late Pres. Ferdinand Marcos was not a hero. But they kept this to themselves for it is the proper thing to do. So henceforth anyone who is no longer comfortable within the Cabinet of Pres. Duterte, let them quit now while the quitting is good!

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