MANILA, Philippines – Vice President Leni Robredo said she is open to having a dinner meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte despite the tension between them.

“Ang assumption [ko] naman parating good intentions ‘di ba? Parang masama din na hindi salubungin halfway ‘yung kanyang offer,” said Robredo in an interview on dzMM on Tuesday morning, March 28.

(Our assumption always is that he has good intentions, right? It wouldn’t look good that I won’t meet him halfway with his offer.)

“Bukas po ako sa dinner na iyon. Kahit maraming mga bagay na hindi natin napagkakasunduan, basta para sa bayan, susubukan natin,” she also said.

(I am open to that dinner. Even if there are a lot of things we don’t agree on, as long as it is for the country, we will try.)

Duterte invited Robredo to a dinner during the graduation of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) last Friday, March 24, which they both attended. This comes amid growing tension between the top two officials of the country because of the impeachment threats both of them are facing.

Robredo said the President also told her personally during the PNPA graduation that he knows she has no hand in the impeachment complaint against him.

“Ang unang sinabi sa akin ni Pangulong Duterte noong PNPA graduation ay against siya sa impeachment [complaint] laban sa akin… Kasi kauumpisa pa lang daw namin, bakit ‘di kami bigyan ng chance na makapagtrabaho muna?” said Robredo.

(What President Duterte first told me during the PNPA graduation is that he is against the impeachment complaint against me… because we had just started, why not give us the chance to work first?)

This is despite House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez’s accusations that Robredo is behind the alleged ouster plot against Duterte.

Earlier Senator Antonio Trillanes IV warned Robredo that the dinner invitation was a “trap”, and that “only the naive would be fooled.”

Alvarez has threatened Robredo with an impeachment complaint for “betraying the public’s trust” with her alleged misreporting of the numbers related to the war on drugs. Alvarez pointed to a Robredo video in a United Nations (UN) event, which turned out to be shown only on the sidelines of the main event, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The Robredo camp also said they had sent the video as early as February to the organizers and had nothing to do with the timing of its release.

Marcos supporters Oliver Lozano and Melchor Chavez have since sent an impeachment complaint against Robredo to Alvarez’s office for endorsement.

No regrets 

Despite it being the root of the impeachment threats against her, Robredo said she does not regret criticizing the administration’s war on drugs.

“Hindi ako nagsisisi sa ginawa kong message sa UN. Bago ko ginawa ‘yun, pinag-aralan muna,” the Vice President said. (I don’t regret the video message to the UN. Before we made it, the matter was studied first.)

Robredo maintained that the video message was based on facts they obtained from several reports released by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, to name a few.

“Nag-base tayo sa data na ni-release ng iba. Human Rights Watch sabi niya ‘ata 7,000. Amnesty International, 7,025… kinalap natin lahat ng available, ‘di naman ito nire-report for the first time,” she said.

(We based [what we said] on the data released by others. Human Rights Watch reported 7,000. Amnesty International, 7,025… we collected all data available and this is not the first time it has been reported.)

The Vice President said they wanted the report to be based on statistics of the Philippine National Police (PNP) but it did not respond to the letter requesting for data. The same was true for the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

“I remember we were shooting the video message. They (organizers) were asking for it by the end of February. So since we received no answer, we based it on what others released,” she explained.

The letter was sent to the DILG, the PNP copy-furnished, last January 24. Robredo’s camp said that to date, they haven’t received a response to the letter. (LOOK: Robredo’s letter to PNP requesting info on drug war) 

Aside from the supposed discrepancy in numbers, Robredo has also been criticized for exposing the alleged palit-ulo (target-switching) scheme she exposed in the video. In a palit-ulo scheme, the police take a family member of a drug suspect in exchange for the suspect himself whenever that suspect is not found during a police operation. 

In Robredo’s defense, her camp earlier said reference to the scheme only came from the complaints they have been receiving from the urban poor.

To settle the issue, the Vice President said she will be meeting with DILG Secretary Ismael Sueno after Holy Week to relay the findings of her office. – Rappler.com