“Appointment leaves nothing to be desired for Robredo since it carries with it a Cabinet rank and the whole law enforcement institution at her command that will allow her a proactive role.

Vice President Leni Robredo, in accepting yesterday the challenge of President Rody Duterte for her to step up and prove that she can do better in addressing the drug problem, would likely exploit the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) position as a springboard to 2022.

It was her incessant criticism of the conduct of the war on drugs that included appeals before the United Nations that prodded Rody to name her as the anti-drugs czarina despite the view of law enforcers in the campaign that she did not have the track record for the position.

Robredo’s camp cited the argument that the co-chair post of the inter-agency committee on anti-illegal drugs does not exist and that she did not ask to be appointed to a Cabinet position as excuses for failing to respond immediately and clearly to the post given to her on a silver platter.

After days of indecision, she accepted the dare with the yellow camp apparently convinced that the position can be maneuvered to her advantage to back her 2022 presidential run.

Her camp surmised that Rody’s proposition was meant to make her a scapegoat for what Robredo claimed was a failed campaign but later the wind changed apparently with a new gameplan.

In an interview with international news outfit Reuters, Robredo said the war on drugs was a failure, and was quoted as saying, “It should not continue.”

Robredo denied making a suggestion to halt the campaign, for which she got a rebuttal from Reuters as the news service said it was standing by its story.

The assessment of the Vice President conflicts with the truth, however, as 82 percent of respondents in a recent survey approved of the program to rid the nation of the menace that had threatened to engulf the country and turn it into a narco state during the term of yellow President Noynoy Aquino.

To answer her claim that the offer to her was not serious, Rody issued a memorandum dated 31 October and released on 6 November, in which he designated Robredo as co-chairman of the ICAD until 30 June 2022.

The ICAD was formed under Executive Order 15 in March 2017 and is headed by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Since the memorandum has the force of law, Rody made clear that the offer was genuine and thus confronted Robredo’s whining.

But no, the Vice President remained evasive, saying that the position given her was meaningless before finally accepting the offer.

“If you look at the executive order creating the (committee), the co-chair post is nonexistent,” her mouthpiece told a news briefing.

The Palace said in response that the appointment of Robredo is part of Rody’s “continuing effort to reorganize the bureaucracy.”

The yellow opportunists are hoping to turn the table on Rody and catapult Robredo to the only post that is acceptable to her and her ilk, which is the presidency. The pussyfooting she and her yellow backers employed only proved that publicity mileage and the demonization of the administration are the primary objectives of the flood of criticisms leveled against Rody and his signature campaign.

The appointment leaves nothing to be desired for Robredo since it carried with it a Cabinet rank and the whole law enforcement institution placed under her command that will allow her a proactive role.

Still, she waffled and her camp appeared thrown into confusion into how to respond to the President’s firm move.

With the posting, Robredo can initiate what she advocates as a “public health approach” in solving the narcotics problem which her backers said is more effective than the methods employed in the war on drugs.

Rody showed that in making Robredo his drug czarina, his ultimate motivation was to safeguard public welfare by tapping whoever can contribute to the battle against illegal drugs regardless of political color.

Robredo for her part made it clear that all the criticism she hurled against the President and the acceptance of the crucial anti-narcotics post, first and foremost, are meant to further her political agenda instead of fostering public gain.