Media hog of a VP

Members of media found it strange that Robredo had to call on Monday a press briefing only to announce that there is no press briefing.

This one is for the books, Vice President Leni Robredo called a press conference that attracted nearly all news organizations only to listen to her announcement that she will not hold a media briefing.

Thus said chief Presidential Legal Counsel and presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo following Robredo’s loony way of informing the public that she is not ready yet with her much-hyped report on the war on drugs when she was the co-chairman of the Inter-agency committee against drugs (ICAD).

Members of media found strange the need for Robredo to personally announce that there is no press briefing, while flashing her 40-page report on her alleged discoveries on the governmemt’s war on illegal drugs.

Robredo claimed her decision to defer the release of her report was due to her attention to the victims of the strong earthquake that hit Mindanao Sunday afternoon.

“She has deferred her report a number of times, looking for a perfect timing and hoping that people would pay attention to her as she struggles to be relevant, while the government is silently doing its job in addressing the issues our nation faces, such as providing assistance to those who were affected by the recent earthquake,” Panelo said in a statement.

“We reiterate that the government’s campaign against illicit drugs is of utmost importance. People’s lives are at risk. The welfare of the next generation is at stake,” he underlined.

According to Panelo, if Vice President Robredo has anything to recommend to improve the current anti-illegal drug war, she should immediately speak out.

“This is not the time to vacillate. If she has “discoveries” that she threatened to expose, bring it on!, as the President dares her to do,” Panelo said.

At the same time, Panelo branded as “pure nonsense” the comment made by Robredo’s camp saying that he has no empathy (“walang malasakit”) as a reaction to his comment with regard to the former drug czarina’s non-release of the drug war report following the quake that took place in Mindanao.

According to Panelo, the release of her report/recommendation, previously described by her as “discoveries,” insinuating that these were irregularities that she threatened to expose has nothing to do with focusing efforts to help the earthquake victims and the rehabilitation work on the resulting damage.

“The resort to the sympathy card is misplaced. VP Leni was elsewhere when a typhoon ravaged her hometown of Naga on Christmas day in 2016 but we didn’t accuse her of not sympathizing with her countrymen because it is a non-sequitur,” Panelo said.

He added it was Robredo who announced to media that she would release her “discoveries” which she now described as a recommendation report, as then co-chairman of the ICAD, immediately after the conclusion of the 30th Southeast Asian Games.

He said people, including those in the government, were therefore expecting to hear something significant from her, if any, in her press briefing which was scheduled on 16 December.

“This administration, through the various agencies of the government, provides reports to the people regularly. It is not as if when the Vice President speaks, the world will stop and the government will halt its operations to provide assistance in Davao. As described by some notable columnists, she has become irrelevant at this time due to her not well thought of political statements,” Panelo said.

He also dismissed as “pure nonsense” the claim of Robredo’s spokesman Barry Gutierrez that his taunting to release the discoveries and recommendations on how to improve the government’s efforts against illegal drugs showed he lacked empathy to the situation of the residents affected by the quake.

“The release of her report/recommendation, previously described by her as ‘discoveries,’ insinuating that these were irregularities that she threatened to expose has nothing to do with focusing efforts to help the earthquake victims and the rehabilitation work on the resulting damage. Both can co-exist,” Panelo said.