Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Thursday said calling Vice President Leni Robredo “a spare tire” is completely “immaterial and uncalled for.”

Drilon is reacting to the statements uttered by presidential spokesperson Harry Roque who recently made an issue out of Robredo’s “postings” on Twitter where she gave real-time updates of her relief efforts following the massive flooding in Cagayan and Isabela.
 
“Indeed, I know for a fact that the Vice President is doing more than what is required of her. She is generating help from the private sector in order to help our kababayan. Again, it is unfortunate that this statement has been made. It is completely immaterial and uncalled for,” Drilon said in an interview on CNN Philippines’ The Source.
 
Drilon, however, said President Duterte’s verbal attacks against the vice president is no longer surprising since he too, experienced being at the receiving end of the leader’s personal assaults.
 
“I am no longer surprised. I’ve been on the receiving end also in the past, also when I was at the start and the end of the State of the Nation Address (SONA), if you remember. I was not surprised,” he said.
 
“But what saddens me is that number one, the statements of the President were based on information which turned out to be inaccurate,” Drilon pointed out.
 
The minority leader said that since Secretary Salvador Panelo and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has clarified the erroneous reports coming from the Philippine Air Force (PAF) and apologized for the wrong information which they apparently fed to the President, he hopes that the country can put the issue “behind us now.”
 
“We would like to appeal to everyone, the President, the Vice President, that let us have a unified voice. Our people need an undivided attention of the government,” he said.
 
“Politics will come later if you must say. But right now, given the extent of the damage and the need of the people, there is a need for a united leadership at this point,” he stressed.
 
“That the VP is a spare tire is completely immaterial. All of us, whether you are the President, the Vice President, senator, congressman, or an ordinary citizen, your help is needed by our millions of unfortunate brothers and sisters in the calamity-hit areas. It is completely immaterial to the help needed by our people. You do not have to be vice president to help Yes, there are no particular functions assigned by the President to the Vice President, that is the prerogative of the President but that is not material to the help that the Vice President is doing in the calamity-hit areas,” he reiterated.