#AnimatED: Leni, the new Leila

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#AnimatED: Leni, the new Leila
The bandwagon against Vice President Leni Robredo is of all stripes. She is this government's new De Lima – woman, vulnerable, and too decent for a dirty game like this.

And in a snap, Leni Robredo is the problem. 

She is at fault for announcing to the world, in a video sent to an international non-governmental organization in March, what every Tom, Rody, and Donald already knows: that killings in the government’s war on drugs have become too many to be justified.

She is to blame for the bad press the Philippines is getting, as if the country has not been hogging global headlines in the last 8 months.

She is behind the potential drop in tourist arrivals and investments, as if the government has not recently boasted how trade and investment have become immune to all the negative stories on the Philippines. 

She is in cahoots with the “yellow media” in bringing down this government, as if she has the machinery, the desire, and the political power to do so.

If the Vice President is to be faulted for anything it is precisely her reluctance to fully embrace the power of her office, and exercise it. She is neither here nor there. To sectors close to her, she is opposition but not opposition enough, critical but not critical enough, political but not political enough, Liberal but not Liberal enough.

She initially thought, like her party mates in the Liberal Party, that she could work with this administration. It was a pipe dream. 

And so while she kept quiet for awhile as Leila de Lima blasted her way through the Duterte juggernaut, she was spared the chopping board. Now that the feisty senator is in jail, Robredo is next in line.

The bandwagon against her is of all stripes – from the usual hitman Vitaliano Aguirre II, to the wheeling and dealing Pantaleon Alvarez, to the usually sober Andrea Domingo, to the embarrassment called Wanda Teo, to the usually sidelined and quiet Ismael Sueno

This government has a new De Lima – woman, vulnerable, and too decent for a dirty game like this.

The Vice President needs to fasten her seatbelt, and take President Duterte’s call for his allies to stop the impeachment move against her with a grain of salt.

But she should not just ride along and simply hope for the best.

A pushover she is not. As an elected leader, Robredo should show grit every step of the way – not for her sake but for Filipinos who deserve no less from their vice president. – Rappler.com

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