When the discourse descends to childish name-calling and mud-slinging comes the time once again to step back and take stock of the landscape from a higher plane of thinking. If we apply a fresh perspective to what is going on — specifically the tiff between “vice president” Leni Robredo and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Teddy Benigno Jr — it is easy to see a common denominator. That common denominator is Robredo
The Executive Branch is an execution function (duh!) and its Chief Executive, the President of the Philippines, is its supreme leader. It is the job of everyone who reports to the president to follow his lead. They may challenge him behind closed doors but doing so in public is bad form. As such, Robredo is, basically, a disruptive element in the Executive Branch. She needs to be dealt with.
To the average Yellowtard mind, that sounds, well, “tyrannical”. But that’s only because Yellowtards react first before any semblance of thinking kicks in. When I say that (1) personnel of the Executive Branch should following the President and (2) that Robredo, in doing otherwise, is acting stupid, I say so in the context of the Executive Branch taken in isolation. Extend the conversation beyond the Executive Branch to include the full set of government branches, the Legislature and the Judiciary, and it is easy to see that there is no such “tyranny” to get one’s panties all twisted about. Whatever the Executive Branch does can be challenged by members of Congress. And if the Executive Branch does anything illegal, they can be taken to court which then becomes the jurisdiction of the Judiciary to rule on.
So you see, the Executive Branch can function internally as a “dictatorship” as long as it does so within the framework of the law.
Robredo, therefore, behaving in what has been described as a “stupid” manner as “vice president” is doing the job that Congress and Philippine Courts are already doing which is to keep the Executive Branch in check. In short, Robredo is doing work that is not part of her job and is wasting Filipino taxpayers’ resources. All of what she is focusing on — talking out of line, schmoozing with the media, and pandering to the Yellowtard narrative — are activities one would expect of elements of the Opposition, Robredo is no more than a rogue and not much else. As such, she has no place in the Duterte government. The Office of the Vice President after all is part of the Executive Branch and Duterte, whether anyone like it or not, is the Chief Executive.
Unless she changes the way she conducts hereself as “vice president”, Robredo is a waste of space.
She insults Philippine Congress by posturing as a challenger to the President while he remains perfectly capable. She insults the Philippine Supreme Court by presuming to be the Filipino people’s legal representative within the Executive Branch. No such ludicrous functions exist and, as such, the way Robredo is using her office is unethical, dishonest, and unconstitutional. There could likely be a strong case to lodge an impeachment complaint that is framed in this manner — by showing that she is in total dereliction of duty by working on things outside of what she is constitutionally mandated to deliver as “vice president”.
If Robredo’s defenders say she is being “disrespected” by people who call her “stupid”, they should at the very least pause and reflect on whether Robredo had been a respectable “vice president” from Day One. It is quite evident that it is Robredo who disrespected her own office by conducting herself the way she has been since she first stepped into it in 2016.
It’s time Robredo be held accountable for being a disrespectful and, more to the point, negligent Vice President. She did not act as Vice President of the Philippines. She spent the last three years being no more than the mouthpiece of a long-discredited political bloc that contributed to the catastrophic loss of a much-needed Opposition that it foolishly presumed to lead.
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