Is there really such a thing as a Duterte-Robredo administration? Only if you believe the ABS-CBN network, apparently.
According to Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, there is no such thing. “I never heard of an Aquino-Binay, an Estrada-Arroyo or an Aquino-Laurel administration. This is the first time in my life that a VP is part of [the name of] an administration,” said Cayetano, speaking during the Davao City victory party for President-elect Rodrigo Duterte over the weekend.
Of course, Cayetano would have dearly loved for it to have been a Duterte-Cayetano administration, if the voters had allowed it. But I’m with Cayetano on this, even if I don’t agree with him on a lot of other issues.
(My latest beef against the defeated running mate of Duterte is the appointment of television broadcaster Martin Andanar, a nephew-in-law of Senator Cynthia Villar, as head of the Presidential Communications Operations Office. Cayetano, I think, is hell-bent on packing the Duterte Cabinet with members of the family of the Villars, his mates in the Nacionalista Party.)
Even in the United States, where you can’t vote for a “split ticket” like we do here, no one calls it the Obama-Biden administration. For the matter of that, I’m sure the Republicans would never have agreed, for obvious reasons, to call the government of George Bush Sr. the Bush-Quayle administration.
Cayetano sees a plot in the broadcast giant’s joining together of the names of Vice President-elect Leni Robredo and Duterte. “Even this early, they already have dirty plans in their minds,” he said.
“They want to kick him out, remove him from office even before he sits down as president,” Cayetano said. “We already have a Duterte-resign petition, impeach-Duterte calls.”
In Cayetano’s mind, the network must be part of a plot to condition the minds of the people to accept Robredo not only as Duterte’s successor in case he somehow fails to finish his term, but also as a part of the Duterte administration. She is entitled to the first, of course, but she not the second, unless the president-elect gives her a Cabinet or other similar position.
And a job in Duterte’s government would make Leni a real part of the administration —even if she still won’t merit being conjoined with Duterte in the administration’s name.
Robredo’s latest job-hunting effort in the Duterte government has also ended in grief, after the camp of the new president announced that the post of head of the National Anti-Poverty Commission will go “to a woman from the Left.”
The urban poor group Kadamay said Robredo can’t have the NAPC post because she helped herself to poverty-alleviation funds intended for the politically weaponized Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program when she ran with Mar Roxas.
Duterte himself has already explained that he is not giving Robredo any position because he doesn’t want to hurt his friend, Senator Ferdinand Marcos. So Leni will just have to wait out the next six years engaged in “kembot.”
That is not a sexist remark, by any means. As I recall, as the grueling campaign was ending, Robredo herself told an interviewer that she needed to exert just a little more effort (“konting kembot na lang,” she said) and her work as a candidate would be over.
Now, it appears that she will have to “kembot” all the way to 2022, assuming that Duterte completes his term. And even with the help of the people in ABS-CBN and all the other orphaned Yellows who want her to continue leading the country on that fictitious—and now thoroughly discredited—straight path, that’s not going to be an easy task.
As they say on the street, kembot pa more.
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Speaking of the senator from Taguig, Senator Tito Sotto is rightly appalled: Cayetano has no right to use the Senate presidency as a “parking slot” until the one-year ban for election losers expires and he can snag a post in the Duterte administration, Sotto said.
Sotto, of course, is also seeking the post. And the last time I checked, the position of Senate president has still not been relinquished by its current occupant, Franklin Drilon—who I think is trying to find a way to remain as “SP” even if he is very closely identified with the now-moribund Liberal Party of the outgoing Aquino administration.
But the ascension of Drilon must be the chief motivation of Cayetano in seeking the post, never mind if he only wants to occupy it for a year. If the Senate, for all its talk about being fiercely independent of Malacañang, can stand having Drilon as its head, why not Duterte’s running mate?
The voting for the new Senate head happens on July 25 yet, when Congress reconvenes under the new administration. We shall see then if the slot has been reserved for Cayetano—or not.