“Leni is trying to be clever and in essence is saying that the drug problem was well under control under the yellow regime, and controlled too, without the now inflated numbers of deaths from the drug war.

Cornered for first denouncing President Duterte’s war on drugs, Vice President Leni Robredo now says that she was misquoted by the media. All she said was that she had urged the administration to “tweak” what was ineffective in the campaign.

In explaining her latest claim, Robredo was quoted as saying: “What I said in my interview was that the government should assess if the strategy it is using is still effective,” as she clarified over the radio, because if it’s already improper, we need to tweak it. Tweak means to change slightly,” she said, despite several international media having quoted her as saying that Duterte’s drug war was “obviously not working.”

With different departments and bureaus involved in fighting the drug problem, and knowing that Robredo was clearly off the mark in the inflated numbers of deaths as a result of the alleged drug war waged by the administration, Robredo tried to save herself from her clear ignorance of the numbers offered by various government agencies involved, such as the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

Despite her denials over what she was quoted by the media, she did say, while trying to quote Duterte, that the number of drug users in the country was about seven to eight million in the country. She also cited data from the DDB saying that in 2016, drug users in the country numbered only 1.8 million when Duterte became president.

Leni is trying to be clever and in essence is saying that the drug problem was well under control under the yellow regime, and controlled too, without the now inflated numbers of deaths from the drug war. This is clearly a false statement, as her yellow patron hardly did anything to stop the big drug lords and their illegal drug laboratories.

Now she is trying to step back, with her new claim that, “We’re not saying they should stop the campaign against illegal drugs. What I’m saying is the government should step back, and assess what’s wrong with the campaign.”

A step back would quickly translate to the drug lords and pushers taking the government pause with them and their happy days celebrating. Or doesn’t Leni know that yet?

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency figures belie the claims of Leni. They show the progress made thus far: Narcotics worth more than P36 billion were seized in a span of two years and four months, drugs worth P7.6 billion were seized during this year alone, along with some 200,000 suspected drug pushers arrested in 125,000 law enforcement operations, while more than 15,000 barangays were cleared of the drug problem since Duterte assumed office in July 2016.

From where do Leni’s figures come? Thin air?

No matter the denial, Leni was quoted correctly by the media, local and international, and she is obviously trying to get out of it by claiming that all she did was urge the administration to tweak the drug war’s ineffectiveness, even when she also said that the victims killed in the drug operations were poor, and that several policemen were also accused of abusing their power.

What is more likely is that Leni relied on the usual administration critics who feed human rights groups, local and international, with inflated numbers of deaths that these groups quickly label as extrajudicial killings. Leni also figured that such statements would be carried by the international media and would then get the attention not only of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) but also foreign governments.

But alas and alack, for Leni Robredo, who again parroted that which her yellow and red groups wanted her to do and now, to save herself from more embarrassment, if not ignorance, she says she was not asking for Duterte to stop his drug war, but that she only wanted him to tweak the war on drugs.

What does Leni want then, by way of tweaking? She did say that only the poor were being killed and by the thousands. Is she then now saying, in her claim of being misquoted by the media, that Duterte’s war on drugs should only kill, say, half of the poor?

What to Leni then is ineffective in the administration’s war on drugs? Does she even know, especially when she continues to parrot the figures inflated by the usual yellows, their allies, the commies and the usual activists?

If Leni says the drug war is a failure, what is her basis for saying it, especially as the surveys point to a majority of the respondents saying they are satisfied with the results of the drug war?

She obviously can’t give the basis, not in its ineffectiveness because all she wanted to say, by way of her radio program, was for the media to pick up what she said for the UN special rapporteurs and UNHRC to take notice again, since there has been silence on that international front.

One dreads the thought of a Leni Robredo in the presidential seat, parroting what the yellows, reds and unholy whites and not to forget Uncle Sam wants her to say, and do.