If you will only send a text on such matters, then it is not serious.

CAYETANO: Health-based approach won’t work.

Denying that she received a text message from the Palace, Vice President Leni Robredo could not wait for the formal letter from Malacañang that will designate her as an anti-drug czarina.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo, however, said it will be sent even as he showed a telephone text message supposedly sent to Robredo, confirming President Rodrigo Duterte’s offer for her to lead the government’s anti-drug war for three months.

The President’s offer to Robredo came after she rebuked Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign, calling it a failure.

“For God’s sake. First of all, I did not receive any,” Robredo said.

“And if it is serious, why would (Malacañang) send me a text message? Right? Even if you don’t respect me, just respect the position. If you will only send a text on such matters, then it is not serious,” she added.

Robredo further questioned Duterte’s offer, arguing that an offer like that should not have been made if there is no failure in the administration’s drug war.

She, however, failed to gain support from other government officials despite her escalated criticisms against the President.

On Tuesday, Senate President Vicente Sotto, who served as a chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), said the President should make Robredo the chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) or the DDB so that she learns the intricacies of waging war against the narcotics trade.

“If it’s a serious proposal, it’s best if the VP (Vice President) is appointed as DDB chair and concurrent PDEA director general,” Sotto said in a Viber message.

Former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief and now Sen. Ronald de la Rosa, who led the administration’s drug war until 2018, also aired his side, saying the President should maintain focus on the war on drugs instead of giving it to an official “who has no experience in dealing with such campaign.”

“I don’t want our country to become another Mexico. So, PRRD (President Rodrigo Roa Duterte) should tighten his grip on the drug situation instead of leasing his power to anybody who has no proven track record in crime-fighting, especially in the arena of drugs,” De la Rosa said.

Sotto also taunted critics of the drug war and told them to just “zip it.”

“The war [versus] drugs is an ongoing struggle. You only fail if you stop fighting. If you don’t know this complex crime, zip it!” Sotto aired yesterday.

Panelo also reiterated that the President’s offer to Robredo is a sincere gesture to provide her with the venue to undertake a new tact in solving the drug menace, if in her mind the present method is a failure or ineffective.

“She may have a better solution. This is an enticing opportunity to show her mettle as a public servant in destroying the drug apparatus, as well as helping the people be freed from this fatal threat to society,” Panelo said.

The Palace official said entertaining the offer as insulting on her part is devoid of logic.

“The offer of the President should be welcomed by any true civil worker and deemed to be an opportunity to serve the people and show one’s aptitude and capability as a public servant in the service of the people,” Panelo said.

“Leni should not be offended by the text message of this representation, giving her a heads up or an advance information for her to ponder. Such must be considered as a gesture of a friend to another given our history of sharing cellular texts with each other. In all honesty, I even thought that I was giving her a favor to which I anticipated an appreciative reply,” he added.

Panelo said the administration wishes to reiterate its feats relative to its campaign against illegal narcotics: more than 42,000 barangays have been cleared of drugs and more than P35 billion of drugs, chemicals and laboratory equipment have been seized and dismantled.

More than a hundred police scalawags and less than 5,000 drug lords and pushers of illegal drugs, who have violently resisted arrest in buy-bust operations, have been killed under justifiable circumstances making the people safe from them.

“Finally, majority of our people have approved of the policy of the Chief Executive in his anti-illegal drug campaign, with more than eight out of 10 Filipinos, or 82 percent, expressing satisfaction thereof.”

“If these numbers leave the Vice President unsatisfied with gains this administration had in dismantling the illegal drug trade, then perhaps she has a better solution in addressing the social ill and should consider accepting the President’s offer,” he said.

According to Panelo, the position being offered by President Duterte to Robredo is the same when former President Estrada was given the duty of “crime czar” by then former President Fidel Ramos when he was still a vice president.

He said Estrada accepting the duty helped him further get the attention of the people, eventually catapulting him to the presidency.

If Robredo shuns the offer, it may only mean that she cannot do the job, he added.

House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, meanwhile, said a “health-based” approach in curbing the illegal drug use in the country, as suggested by Robredo, is not applicable in the Philippine setting.

“The suggestion of a health-based solution is an ideology in Europe — which also includes legalization of drugs for personal use. I think it will do more harm than good, and they are not talking about specifics,” Cayetano said.

He pointed out that shabu is different from other recreational drugs.

“Even the United Nations stressed that shabu is not like opium, cocaine or morphine,” Cayetano said. “Shabu causes erratic and violent behavior, so there is a big difference in ideology between here and the West because the drugs used are very different.”

The lawmaker also reiterated his call for the Vice President to offer a concrete solution to the drug menace, instead.

Based on government figures, over 5,500 individuals have been killed in anti-drug operations.

Human rights groups, however, peg the drug war deaths to as many as 20,000, which include those killed by unidentified hitmen.