It’s the talk of the town and the diplomatic circle. We are talking about the conspicuous absence of Vice President Leni Robredo at Malacañang’s traditional Vin d’honneur New Year’s Day reception for foreign ambassadors posted in Manila.
It’s not as if someone at the Office of the President goofed and forgot to send an invitation to the second highest official of the land. It is worse when an invitation was indeed sent to the VP—only to be withdrawn later.
The diplomatic incident has only confirmed that all is not well between President Duterte and the Vice President. But to use a diplomatic occasion as the event to show his disdain for the VP only underscores Digong’s petty and combative nature. He has accused his VP as being behind an alleged plot to topple him from power. Really, this early? Usually, plotters and conspirators wait for at least a year or two to build up the raison d’etre for replacing a duly elected president through impeachment, coup d-etat or whipping up a crowd for a people power uprising.
To “disinvite “ the vice president to the Vin d’honneur is unheard of and can only highlight Duterte’s pettiness if not insecurity. The Office of the Vice President, meanwhile, belied reports that she received an invitation.
“No, we did not, and VP Robredo did not really have any schedule or appointment that day,” said a spokesman at the VP’s office. Clearly then, it was a snob without any regard for protocol and the vice president’s office. It was the first time in the Vin d’honneur’s history a sitting vice president was not invited. Then vice president Jejomar Binay was invited to this traditional diplomatic occasion even when he was already sniping at former President Noynoy Aquino.
Duterte should take a cue from former President Ferdinand Marcos who said “embrace your enemies, so you can search them for weapons.” Someone who spoke on condition of anonymity who commented on the incident said: “You can take the man from a small town like Davao, but you cannot take the small mind out of him.” Take for instance Digong saying “bottoms up” in his toast to the gathered ambassadors. As anyone versed in diplomatic practice during these occasions knows, the host merely takes a sip from the glass of champagne or white wine. To drink bottoms up betrays a man who’s used to hard drinking with his buddies at the neighborhood store—a practice which Digong himself had banned upon assuming the presidency.
To the President’s credit, he didn’t take the occasion to take a potshot at the US whose ambassador., Sung Kim, who was present together with Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua and Russian counterpart, Igor Khovaev. China and Russia are the two countries Duterte has been flirting with in his pursuit of a so-called independent foreign policy.
The rift between Robredo and Duterte started when the Veep started criticizing the series of extrajudicial killings in the President’s brutal war on drugs and their traffickers. For this the VP, who was then a member of Duterte’s Cabinet as Housing and Urban Development Secretary, was told not to attend Cabinet meetings anymore. That left Robredo no choice but to resign her post. She also warned Duterte to watch his language when the President threatened town mayors allegedly involved in the illegal drug trade to repent, resign or be killed. In a meeting with the local officials, Duterte waved in his hand a purported list of town mayors linked to the narcotics trade.
Duterte claimed the conspiracy to oust him was hatched by Malacañang and the Liberal Party. Robredo is affiliated with ran and won under the LP banner. Another LP stalwart, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV has also filed unexplained wealth charges against the Dutertes. The senator said Duterte has 41 properties in Davao, Dipolog, Cagayaan de Oro, Quezon City and San Juan City.
Trillanes claimed the properties some of the real estate assets were under the name of his daughter Sara and her husband, another 10 were under the name of his eldest son Paulo while the others were under the name of youngest son Sebastian. Trillanes, however, said he’s still validating other information before actually filing the case. He raised the question why an official like Duterte, a former Davao City mayor, could have so many properties.