WHILE insisting that President Rodrigo Duterte has basis for claiming that Vice President Leni Robredo questioned his whereabouts during the onslaught of Typhoon Ulysses, a top Malacañang official hinted on “misinformation.”
In a television interview, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said he was not sure whether Duterte had been misinformed after Robredo denied the President’s claim.
“I do not know if there was misinformation,” Roque was quoted as saying in one part of the television interview.
“I am not sure and I do not know and my role as a spokesman basically is to clarify matters if what the President said is not clear, but I think what he said last night was already very clear,” Roque said.
“As far as the President’s statements are concerned, I think the President would not have been as irritated as he was, if he did not have personal knowledge that the Vice President was asking for his whereabouts, either publicly or privately,” he added.
Personally though, Roque admitted he had no personal knowledge whether or not the Vice President asked for the whereabouts of the President.
A visibly angry President Duterte unleashed nasty remarks on Robredo for almost half of the duration of his national address Tuesday night. Duterte went as far as labeling Robredo as unfit to lead a country.
The President insisted that he was monitoring the typhoon last Thursday when Ulysses battered Luzon even as he attended a virtual summit of Southeast Asian leaders.
Duterte also claimed that Robredo gave orders to the military at the height of Ulysses’ onslaught.