Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday took a dig at the Duterte administration, saying drug lords continue to operate with impunity.
Robredo made the statement as her critics claimed she would fail to solve the country’s drug problem should she be elected as president.
“When we have a male president, were the drug lords afraid of him? That is my question here,” she said.
Only small-time drug pushers were intimidated under the government’s war on drugs, she added.
“That would be easy to tell since our society looks down at women as weak,” she said.
“But this is my question. The number one priority of this administration is the drug war, and the President is a man. But were the drug lords afraid of them? Perhaps, the small-time pushers are the ones afraid because authorities run after them,” Robredo said.
As a former co-chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs, she said despite the numerous drug-related deaths, the government’s anti-narcotics campaign was still a failure.
“Isn’t it that the promise was to wipe out drugs in three to six months?” she said.
Should she become the next President, she said she would eliminate corruption at ports to be able to go after big-time drug operators.