It’s now business as usual for the boys’ club: Rufus

On the firing of the vice president from icad.

By Jigger J. Jerusalem

Correspondent

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s “All Boys’ Club” was worried about Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo’s appointment as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-illegal Drugs (Icad), Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of the city’s 2nd District said.

“To them, her appointment was totally unacceptable. So it’s now business as usual,” said Rodriguez of Duterte’s decision to fire Robredo barely three weeks after the vice president’s appointment.

The congressman’s reaction to Duterte’s move against Robredo whom, he said, was bound to fail in her task as “drug czar” from the beginning due to several factors.

“The firing of Vice Pres Robredo as drug czar drug is rather unfortunate. President Duterte’s experiment in appointing her was doomed from the very start,” he said.

Rodriguez said Robredo’s political affiliation and her different approach to fighting the country’s narcotics problem were factors that led to her termination as the Icad co-chair.

He said Robredo is the leader of the opposition. A lawyer and an advocate of human rights, Rodriguez said Robredo’s views on anti-illegal drugs campaign were “diametrically opposed to the current thrusts of the administration.”

Meanwhile, the Communist Party, in a statement, said Duterte “had wanted to set up [Robredo] to fail in her appointed task by ensuring that the police and other agencies will be uncooperative with her.”

In doing so, however, the CPP said, “The Duterte government merely succeeded in further exposing its drug war as a sham.”

Duterte, it said, claims he fired Robredo two weeks after appointing her for failing to come up with a plan to end the country’s drug problem, something he has failed to achieve for more than three years now, and which he first promised to end in six months.