She still has three years to prove that beyond rhetoric she can contribute to improving the state of Filipinos beyond the better lives they are now enjoying.

Vice President Leni Robredo should take a long wellness vacation to remove her anxiety over her recent dismissal from the anti-narcotics top post since she couldn’t contribute anything valuable to the campaign that she had maligned for years.

The primary reason that President Rody cited for her appointment and immediate dismissal was her being part of government as vice president and later on as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD), but did nothing except to throw barbs on the war on drugs.

Robredo is obviously having a moist eye on 2022, but now she is trying to ricochet the allegations of Rody saying she is thinking of the next elections.

Last Friday, the President said Robredo should not run for president as she does not have the quality to lead the nation.

It was not a conditional statement that has the 2022 elections as a reference point but a definite assessment on her capability.

Rody said, instead of putting in her share in the campaign against narcotics, Robredo was “always talking” with foreign personalities and institutions who have a fixed judgment on the war on drugs.

“The first thing she did was to go to the embassy of the United States of America, then to the UN (United Nations), then to the EU (European Union),” Duterte described how Robredo flubbed in her role as anti-drug czarina.

What incensed Rody was that the czarina chose to run to the foreign detractors of the campaign rather than presenting whatever her plan was to the people.

“Instead of talking to the law enforcement (officials), instead of talking to the barangay captains, instead of talking to people handling the rehabilitation, she met with whoever,” Duterte said.

Robredo still kept on talking despite her dismissal, saying that she would divulge to the public what she discovered during her short stint as part of ICAD.

Until now, however, she has not made the public report that she threatened.

“You seem to be threatening that you have information. Then, release it now,” Duterte said.

Presidential spokesman Sal Panelo suspects that something is cooking, resulting in Robredo taking time to release her report as she and her backers are fond of “fabricating” stories on the war on drugs.

Robredo is one of the accused in the “Ang Totoong Narcolist” series of videos released during the campaigns for the national elections last May that tried to link Rody, the members of his family and his friends to the drug trade. She is facing sedition charges over her alleged involvement.

As a leader who wanted to know who he can rely on to continue the reforms he started, Rody gave Robredo a crack at it with a regrettable result.

The Vice President, hopefully, would move on and quit dwelling on the imagined allegations against the war on drugs and Rody, since the people had already seen through the motive of such effort.

She still has three years to prove that beyond rhetoric she can contribute to improving the state of Filipinos beyond the better lives they are now enjoying as a result of the decisive leadership of Rody.

Leni’s mistake is the same shortcoming of former President Noynoy Aquino and her cohorts in the Liberal Party (LP) who believe that delivering embellished one-liners or sound bites would pass for governance.

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something, so says Greek philosopher Plato. This is so applicable to Robredo and the LP in their quest to maintain political relevance.

Since Robredo is the current LP head, Rody’s message to the Vice President might as well have been directed towards the yellow party to forget its dream of ever winning back the Filipinos trust.