Ante’s up

“Rody has pushed all his chips in and is now waiting for Robredo, who is apparently sweating it out, to either fold or call the bet.

Vice President Leni Robredo had painted herself into a corner by her incessant attacks on the war on drugs and President Rody Duterte’s methods, and she is left with no option but to put up or shut up in the dare for her to take charge as “drug czarina.”

Rody was emphatic about his offer to Robredo and even called the challenge of the yellow Liberal Party (LP) to extend it beyond six months, as he said the golden chance will last until the end of his term.

Robredo will also have Cabinet rank so that she can share whatever bright ideas she has with the administration.

“I will just make her a Cabinet member (to handle) all drug cases, all things that matter in drugs, that’s hers. That would be until the end of my term. So, that we’re good on it,” the President stacked his dare.

Robredo surprisingly fell quiet and her handlers said that she is busy attending to earthquake victims in Mindanao. “Oh yeah, since when” could be heard loudly in the background.

Rody said Robredo is too “talkative” when it comes to the drug war and “must have the answer” as she regularly criticizes it, and now that the offer is on the table she freezes.

“What can we do better? That’s what I ask her now since she’s more talkative than I am. Tell her to accept it. She’ll be famous. If I can’t do it, maybe she can,” was Rody’s message to Robredo and her opportunist backers.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Boy Locsin joined in the melee as he indicated being excited by the possible response of Robredo to the offer.

“We’re excited. He’s excited,” Locsin said as if watching a high-stakes poker match between the two top officials of the land.

Some of the backers of Robredo, such as retired Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, said Rody should put his offer in writing to make it official, but the President said his words are as good as a binding document.

Chief legal counsel Sal Panelo said the generous offer to the queen detractor included “all offices, bureaus, agencies or government instrumentalities involved in the enforcement of the law on prohibited drugs placed under her command and supervision with a Cabinet secretary portfolio.”

The administration had firmed up the position, based on Panelo’s account, stating Robredo’s post would be similar to the Dangerous Drugs Board chairman, who has the rank of Cabinet secretary.

Her mandate would be to “develop and adopt a comprehensive, integrated, unified and balanced national drug abuse prevention and control strategy.”

Detailing the offer indicated that Rody is serious about giving Robredo the chance to prove her mettle to back up all the criticisms she had launched the past three years, starting from the “palit-ulo” allegations before a United Nations forum.

In that classic fabrication, she claimed that innocent persons are being hauled in exchange for drug suspects during police operations in the anti-narcotics campaign.

“Contrary to the claim of critics and detractors of this administration, we want VP Leni to succeed, her success being ultimately a triumph of the Filipino people against the dreaded and destructive evil that is destroying the basic fabric of our society,” Panelo said.

Before that happens, however, Robredo needs to take up Rody’s offer and stop whining about the dare being not serious.

Rody has pushed all his chips in and is now waiting for Robredo, who is apparently sweating it out, to either fold or call the bet.

It boils to a hard decision which the Vice President needs to show the public that she’s capable of making.