Although she remains critical of President Duterte about some “non-negotiable” issues, Vice President Leni Robredo on Monday, May 24, said she tries to choose her battles because she doesn’t want to be a divisive figure.

Admitting that it’s a “difficult balancing act,” Robredo said during a speech before the students of the University of Cambridge’s MPhil in Public Policy Class of 2021 that she originally planned “not to be very combative, not to enter into any word wars especially with the President.”

But it was during her time in his Cabinet when the extrajudicial killings began on the government’s bloody war on drugs that she started to be vocal about her opposition.

“But there are just some things that are non-negotiables as far as I’m concerned. For example, when the extrajudicial killings were happening left and right, I was a member of the Cabinet at that time. But when the extrajudicial killings have been happening, I was actually...I didn’t hold my horses,” Robredo said.

READ: https://mb.com.ph/2020/01/06/robredo-reports-on-failure-of-govt-anti-drugs-war/

Robredo was Duterte’s chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) until early December 2016 when she resigned from the Cabinet after being told “to desist from attending all Cabinet meetings.”

As a member of the Cabinet, the vice president said that “you’re expected to be the alter ego of the President...it’s understood that you can’t express anything that is against whatever the wishes of the President are.”

“In the many different issues that persisted after that, I try to choose my battles. You know, I try not to comment in issues that even I disagreed with are not considered non-negotiables as far as I’m concerned,” the opposition leader stressed.

She understands what she’s facing every time she criticizes the President, whom she described as “very popular.”

Every time she opposes Duterte’s policies, “I’m attacked,” Robredo said. “I’m attacked not just by the President, but by social media trolls.”

READ: https://mb.com.ph/2021/03/04/ph-citizenry-divided-by-trolls-says-robredo/

Since she assumed office, Robredo’s critics and trolls referred to her as “lugaw (rice porridge) queen” in allusion to her supporters selling bowls of rice porridge to raise funds for her candidacy in 2016.

Robredo doesn’t mind because “it has been always clear with me why I’m here in the first place.”

“I have a mandate to perform. I’m only given six years to perform this mandate and I intend to make use of every second of my six years in office to do good to people, you know, I swore to serve,” she said.

Her mandate to serve the people, Robredo added, “has been my source of strength in an otherwise very difficult political situation.”

Although there are trade-offs to speaking against Duterte, she said “it doesn’t compare to the fact that I’m able to serve defectors, the communities I have tasked myself to serve.”

“And I think the attacks, everything that has been thrown my way pale in comparison to the privilege that has been given to me to be able to serve as vice president of our country,” Robredo added.