Duterte refers to Robredo as "ano" when inquiring on progress of PET vote recount

Many Filipinos indeed ask the same question. Is "vice president" Leni Robredo really the Philippines' vice president? This is a question that has bugged Filipinos since May 2016 when Robredo supposedly "won" the elections on the back of dubious vote count figures. It didn't help either that her party failed to comply with a COMELEC rule that would have disqualified all Liberal Party candidates had the "right" people not intervened in their favour.

No less than Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte himself is keen to find out who the true vice president is. This is evident in how he reportedly inquired today on progress of the Supreme Court Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) overseeing the recount.

“Ano bang latest count nito kay Bongbong pati kay ano? Ma-vice president ba talaga ‘yan [What’s the latest count between Bongbong and the other? Is he/she really the vice president?],” the President said during the assembly attended by Congress leaders in the Palace last Monday, without completing his statement.

As long as Filipinos are not sure who their real vice president is, there can be no real progress in Philippine politics in terms of a collective focus on the important things. As long as allegations of electoral fraud in 2016 as well as the culpability of COMELEC officials who oversaw that election and the role technology provider Smartmatic played in enabling said fraud, Filipinos cannot rest assured that theirs is a modern and sound semocracy.