Seemingly poking fun at former Senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr.’s camp, the spokesman of Vice President Leni Robredo asked, “How many more times does she need to defeat Marcos?” This question was posed after Marcos’ camp reportedly said it would be useless to answer Robredo’s challenge of a one-on-one race to the presidency.

Robredo’s spokesman Barry Gutierrez claimed that the vice president has already defeated the son of the dictator, former president Ferdinand Marcos, three times. 

“Talo sa 2016 election, talo sa recount, talo ang protesta. Para sa isang tatlong beses nang talunan andami pa ring sinasabi (Lost in 2016 election, lost in the recount, lost in the protest. For someone who has been defeated three times, they still say a lot of things),” Gutierrez tweeted in response to his fellow lawyer Vic Rodriguez, Marcos’s spokesman. 

Rodriguez claimed that it is useless to answer Robredo’s challenge of a “one-on-one” with the former senator because no one listened to her when she was trying to unite the opposition. 

He was referring to Robredo’s unification talks with anti-administration forces which have apparently collapsed after Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson, Senator Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Pacquiao, and Manila Mayor Francisco ‘Isko Moreno’ Domagoso announced their candidacies for the presidency. 

But Gutierrez shrugged off the remark, saying that it is clear to them why Marcos would not rather face the vice president once more. 

Robredo won by a slim margin against Marcos in the 2016 vice presidential race. During the recount of the votes, the vice president gained more than 15,000 additional votes in the three pilot provinces of Negros Oriental, Iloilo, and Camarines Sur.

In February this year, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the electoral protest filed by Marcos for not meeting the terms of the protest, which is to prove that fraud happened in the three pilot provinces.

“Malinaw na naman kung bakit takot na takot sila kay Leni Robredo; kung tatlong beses ka nga namang tinalo, aatrasan mo na rin diba (It is clear why they are very afraid of Leni Robredo; if you lost three times, you’re going to back down, too, right)?,” Gutierrez asked. 

Robredo has yet to make a decision to run or not for president, but her supporters have been calling for her to announce her candidacy in the 2022 polls. 

Marcos has also been getting calls to run, especially after his father’s political party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), officially nominated him as their standard-bearer for the 2022 polls. 

The former senator has yet to finalize his decision but admitted that rejoining the vice presidential race when President Duterte already said he is running might be out of the question now.