Duterte’s stark warning to his VP about drug war ‘state secrets’

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Duterte passed on the running of his signature drugs crackdown to Vice-President Leni Robredo, an arch-critic

Duterte said he would fire her if she shared classified information

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Philippine Vice-President Leni Robredo has accepted the offer from President Rodrigo Duterte to lead a role in the deadly drug war. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:05pm, 17 Nov 2019Updated: 10:49pm, 17 Nov 2019

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to remove the vice-president from her “drugs tsar” post if she shared state secrets with foreign individuals and entities.

The warning, which the president made in a television interview, came a few days after he offered Leni Robredo a lead role in his brutal war on drugs, which she later accepted to reassess a campaign she said was fraught with senseless killings.

Robredo, a political rival of the popular Duterte, said on October 23 that international help, including from the United Nations and International Criminal Court (ICC), should be sought if the government refused to change tack and stop abusive police.

“Revealing state secrets to foreign individuals and entities as well as welcoming those who have trampled the country’s sovereignty would be damaging to the welfare of the Filipino people,” presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement on Sunday.

“She may not realise it but she could be treading on dangerous ground. It could be an overreach of the granted authority, hence the reminder,” Panelo said.