Despite difficulties under Duterte, Robredo says no regrets  

MANILA, Philippines — Despite the difficulties she went through due to her political differences with President Duterte, Vice President Leni Robredo yesterday said she has no regrets.

During the final episode of her weekly radio program “BISErbisyong Leni” on dzXL, Robredo said the hardships and not being allies of the President motivated her and her team “to look for ways and become better.”

“All the difficulties given to us, those were actually the things that made us better. We learned to look for ways and accomplish our goals. And to my mind, those made us perform better. Because when it’s hard, you find ways to do your work well,” Robredo said in Filipino.

Robredo was the top target and biggest victim of disinformation even after the May 9 elections, reports said.

Admitting her office suffered much since 2016, Robredo refused to say what her team went through. “For us, the difficulties were blessings,” she said.

In December 2016, Duterte instructed Robredo to “desist” from attending Cabinet meetings, pushing her to resign as chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.

In October 2019, Duterte announced that he would name Robredo as co-chair of the interagency committee on anti-illegal drugs with Cabinet rank.

Robredo, an opposition leader, accepted the post, saying it would allow her to stop “unnecessarily killing.”

However, Duterte backtracked after the vice president met with representatives of the United Nations, the Catholic Church and institutions critical of the anti-drug campaign.

Vice President’s spokesperson lawyer Barry Gutierrez said Robredo’s camp is considering taking legal action against those who spread disinformation on social media after her term of office ends on June 30.

Gutierrez said the initiative would be launched to address the proliferation of fake news and lies on social media, explaining that this kind of trend is detrimental to democracy and public discourse.

He added that groups of lawyers are studying the filing of a lawsuit against those who continue to spread disinformation on social media platforms that host fake news.

He explained that the action to be taken is not only for Robredo, but also for other victims of disinformation on social media.

In February, University of the Philippines journalism professor Yvonne Chua said during a Senate hearing that most instances of disinformation on social media platforms were directed against Robredo.