While President Rody Duterte is wrapping up his most fruitful China visit yet as he brings home the pledge from President Xi Jinping to ardently push for the conclusion of the Code of Conduct (CoC) on South China Sea before 2022 when his term ends, Vice President Leni Robredo rushed to the United States to kickstart a 2022 fundraiser and campaign.

If Rody swings a CoC, it will put to rest all security concerns related to the maritime conflict in the West Philippine Sea since it will bind all claimants to set rules, which China recognizes and agrees to but which Rody said the Americans are trying to block since peace in the region is antithetic to its aims.

In an advisory, the Office of the Vice President said Robredo will be in Maryland, USA to speak at the charity ball organized by her office’s “Angat Buhay” partner, ANCOP Foundation (USA) Inc. to raise funds for the construction of a dormitory for students of Sumilao National High School in Bukidnon.

It is amazing that rabid critics of Rody always make Maryland their first stop when going abroad. Coup plotter Antonio Trillanes IV was in the US state in 2017 to meet with American legislators, including Senator Benjamin Cardyn of Maryland.

Cardyn is the author of a bill in the US Congress that seeks to restrict the supply of defense equipment to the Philippine National Police to penalize Rody for the war on drugs deaths.

Aside from Maryland, Robredo will also be in Canada and in Los Angeles, California supposedly to address her fellow alumni from the University of the Philippines, and she will also hold talks with political figures including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to “discuss their respective advocacies and the initiatives” of Filipino-Americans.

For Robredo and her Liberal Party (LP) associates, Filipino-Americans are Liberal Democrats who richly fund the oust Rody movement led by billionaire Loida Nicolas Lewis.

The LP is priming up Robredo as its standard bearer in 2022 that would require an almost impossible effort to make her win since she is largely unpopular with the 81 percent of respondents to surveys who continue to back Rody.

Also, while her survey numbers are on a downslide, that of Rody is still on the upswing attaining record highs.

In an interview with business news agency Bloomberg, Robredo said she’s keeping her options open for a possible presidential run, saying that if she does run, her probable rival would be “another Duterte.”

“You know, when I ran for the vice presidency, that was one of the prerequisites — that I’m ready to be President. Because the mandate of the Philippine vice president is to take over if anything happens to the President. So, I would not have run for the vice presidency if I thought that I was not ready for the presidency,” she said.

Yet she conceded that, “It would not, at all, be surprising for another Duterte to become President.”

Robredo, though, has a good idea of her chances based on the results of the recent elections.

Robredo admitted that a lot of work is needed to surmount what awaits her based on the Otso Diretso shutout in the midterm elections last May.

Whenever the critics of Rody are cornered in a tight spot, their destination is almost always the United States where there seems to be an endless supply of financing even for a lost cause.