MANILA, Philippines – President Rodrigo Duterte named Vice President Leni Robredo as among his political enemies, who he slammed during his meeting with the Filipino community in Myanmar on Sunday, March 19.

“Si Leni, apurado masyado maging presidente (Leni, she’s in a hurry to become president),” Duterte said in his speech, in which he also lashed out against his fiercest critics, senators Leila de Lima and Antonio Trillanes IV.

The President’s remarks come amid an impeachment threat against Robredo issued by Duterte’s staunch ally, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

Alvarez had said he wants Robredo impeached, after accusing her of being behind the first impeachment complaint against Duterte.

Magdalo Representative Gary Alejano, Trillanes’ ally, filed the impeachment complaint against Duterte last Thursday, March 16. Alejano earlier said Robredo had nothing to do with the complaint.

The Vice President has been very vocal against the spate of extrajudicial killings brought about by the administration’s war on drugs. More than 7,000 deaths have been recorded in just the first 8 months of the President.

Recently, Robredo bared that there is a “palit-ulo” scheme where police take other family members when the suspected drug user is not at home during an operation.

Stressing that the drug problem threatens national security, Duterte said in his speech that both dealers and users must be “destroyed”.

But he said that not every death should be attributed to his drug war.

“Marami ‘yan, maraming namatay. Pero ‘yung sinasabi na namatay isang pamilya, huwag naman. I am going to prison for the right [thing]. Huwag naman itapon mo sa akin na lahat na lang ng patay ay sa akin,” said the President.

(Many have been killed. But what they say, that a whole family died, don’t. I am going to prison for the right thing. But don’t blame me for all the deaths.)

Duterte reiterated that the bloody anti-drug campaign would persist.

“We will continue until the last drug lord in the Philippines is killed and the pusher out of the streets. If I go to prison for that, so be it, it’s my destiny,” he said. – Rappler.com