Palace on Robredo: We don’t expect her to say positive things about gov’t

Malacañang on Wednesday acknowledged that Vice President Leni Robredo will never say anything good about the Duterte administration amid her continued criticism of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Robredo claimed in an interview on “Quarantined with Howie Severino” on Tuesday that the national government lacked a “cohesive plan” to fight the virus, adding removing Health Secretary Francisco Duque III from his position will not change anything if the system, which she called a failure, remains.

The Vice President also said she has the right to express her opinions about the pandemic response as a Filipino citizen.

“She is entitled to her opinion. Of course as the leader of the opposition, we don’t expect anything positive about this administration from her. We’ve accepted that. I think people have accepted that,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque told CNN Philippines in an interview when asked to comment on Robredo’s latest statement.

“She can say all the negative things about the administration but [the] people still support the President.”

The Palace earlier disputed Robredo’s observation that the Duterte administration did not have a clear direction on how to address the COVID-19 crisis.

Roque said on August 27 that the government took measures that resulted in the relatively low mortality rate for COVID-19 and improvement in the hospitals’ capacity to treat severe and critical cases. — Virgil Lopez/RSJ, GMA News