BWM supports Robredo resignation from Duterte Cabinet

The Black and White Movement (BWM) on Monday said it supports the resignation of Vice President Leni Robredo from the Duterte Cabinet as housing czar, saying she has no place in a "mafia-style" government.

"We support Vice President Leni Robredo’s decision to resign from the Cabinet. It was the responsible and proper thing to do. If the President's attitude towards the executive branch is that it is a vehicle for the spoils system, then Vice President Robredo has no place in mafia-style government," the group said in a statement.

Robredo resigned from her post as chairperson of the HUDCC (Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council) after President Rodrigo Duterte instructed Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco to tell her to stop attending Cabinet meetings.

In her statement announcing her resignation, Robredo said that the agency's 2017 budget had been slashed by more than P19 billion and key appointment recommendations were not acted upon.

BWM also said that there was more to Robredo's exclusion than "kindergarten-style pettiness" on the part of the administration.

"Responsibility without authority, and responsibilities without the necessary resources, would doom any public servant to fail. There is more to President Duterte's order to exclude Vice President Leni Robredo from cabinet meetings than kindergarten-style pettiness," it said.

"By ensuring that she would be unable to meet her responsibilities by withholding action on appointments and executive orders, and by cutting the budget of the office she was tasked to head, the President sacrificed the delivery of public services to his campaign of political vendetta," it added.

BWM also supported Commission on Higher Education chairwoman Patricia Licuanan, who also received a text message from Evasco to stop attending Cabinet meetings starting December 5.

"We are also concerned with the instruction, conveyed through Bong Go to Cabinet Secretary Evasco, to ban Commission on Higher Education Chair Patricia Licuanan from cabinet meetings. She is obviously unwelcome in the company of 'tutas' and tactical allies that have decided to put their interests ahead of the nation's," it said.

Robredo ran in the May national polls under the Liberal Party while Licuanan was appointed by then-President Noynoy Aquino.

Meanwhile, the organization urged an "examination of conscience" by Filipinos, saying that in the five months since Duterte's inauguration, "the change that has come has been the reversal of thirty years of democratic gains, the coopting and then neutering, of institutions, and the promotion of a culture of murder that will long leave a mark on our society," it said.

BWM also called on the public to refrain from standing in support of what it called the "New Order" imposed by Duterte.

"We request all people of goodwill to ask: can you stand being complicit in the single-minded maneuvering to restore the Marcoses to power? Allow the abuse of those who put power ahead of principle and the people? The murders, the impunity? For to remain a supporter of the President is to make yourself part of the New Order Duterte is bent on imposing on our people," BWM said.

Members of the Black and White Movement included former Cabinet members of the Aquino administration such as former Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, former Social Welfare Sec. Dinky Soliman, and peace process adviser Teresita Deles. — Joseph Tristan Roxas/BM, GMA News