Robredo's role is not an easy one, to be sure, having to stand in fortuitous waiting for the president to die or become incapacitated, but a president who meanwhile turns whatever he touches to ruins with such efficiency his successor, whoever that may be, would not know how to begin to clean up after him.
I did in fact ask Robredo how she might herself approach the job if it fell to her. She just looked at me, then looked sightlessly through me, shaking her head not so vigorously as might indicate a terrified and escapist "Oh, no, not me!", but slowly, indicating what seemed to me a more dutiful if anxious "Well...."
Of course, when I put the question to her, Duterte had done extensive touching all around: more than 20,000 had been killed in his extrajudicial war on drugs; Marawi City had been reduced to ground zero in his bombing war against a gang of separatists, brigands, and terrorist suspects; corruption and profligacy had begun to smell from inside his regime; China had been far gone into its arms buildup in the West Philippine Sea waters he had ceded to it, treasonously, and also had begun to corner official infrastructure and loan contracts on terms so criminal kickbacks cannot but be suspected; and oppositionist Senator Leila de Lima had been in jail longer than a year, awaiting indictment for a crime her persecutors had yet to decide.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=89615.0