The summary dismissal of Vice President Leni Robredo as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) without any valid reasons and due process is akin to an extrajudicial killing (EJK).
Tulad ng mga biktima ng EJK, nanlaban si Robredo or she fought and criticized the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs.
The mistake of Vice President Leni Robredo is that she took her role as anti-drugs czar very seriously while President Rodrigo Duterte considered her appointment as a flippant joke and an off-the-cuff reaction to her criticisms on his bloody war against drugs.
It is utterly unnecessary for President Rodrigo Duterte to threaten Vice President Leni Robredo with dismissal as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) if she would reveal “state secrets” on illegal drugs.
Robredo knows only too well that “state secrets” must not be made public nor shared with unauthorized persons in order not to jeopardize national security and she would treat classified information given to her as confidential.
Concerned agencies like the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) cannot blindfold Vice President Leni Robredo in her new role as anti-drug czar and push her to the precipice by denying her the accurate information on illegal drugs.
Policy reorientation on the anti-narcotics campaign must be data and evidence-based.
It is bad enough when a bill is approved by a tyranny of numbers over the ascendancy of reason, but it is worse when a bill is deemed approved by a paucity of numbers in derogation of parliamentary rules.
The latter dismal scenario happened again yesterday, November 13, 2019, when the approval on second reading of the Malasakit substitute bill to HB No. 5477 was railroaded with only a handful of Representatives present in the Plenary.
