Vice President Leni Robredo File Photo

MANILA – Vice President Leni Robredo on Monday ramped up her criticism of the Duterte administration following the move in the Senate to strip Liberal Party senators of key posts.

In a statement, Robredo said the LP had been determined to work with the Duterte administration and “put national interest before politics.”

The vice-president, however, said it is “now clear that the Duterte administration is incapable of tolerating dissent, no matter how constructive.”

“What happened in the Senate today is characteristic of an administration obsessed with monopolizing power and intent on marginalizing those who have opposing views.”

Allies of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Senate cracked the whip on four LP senators who took a strong stand against De Lima's arrest and detention for drug trading and receiving drug payoffs from Bilibid convicts.

LP Senator Franklin Drilon was removed from his post as Senate President Pro-Tempore and replaced by Senator Ralph Recto, also a member of the LP, after garnering 17 votes.

Three LP senators were also stripped of their committee chairmanships in the reorganization.

Senator Cynthia Villar of the Nacionalista Party (NP) took over as chair of the Agriculture and Food committee from LP Senator Francis Pangilinan.

Independent Senator Francis Escudero replaced LP Senator Bam Aquino as chairman of the Education committee.

Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) Senator JV Ejercito replaced Senator Risa Hontiveros as chair of the committee on Health and Demography.

Aquino, Drilon, Hontiveros, and Pangilinan said they would join Senators De Lima and Antonio Trillanes in the minority.

Notably, the four senators who lost their posts actively supported De Lima after a trial court issued a warrant for her arrest on drug-related charges.

Robredo resigned from her role as the government’s housing czar after being ordered to "desist from attending all Cabinet meetings."

She has denied participating in any move to remove the president.

The vice-president said the latest development in the upper chamber echoes the events under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.

“This has happened before. In the past, this paved the way for a one-man rule. We will not be silenced. Our nation deserves no less. Democracy demands dissent,” she said.

Duterte's chief legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, denied that the Palace had a hand in the Senate shake-up.

"I think the policy of the President is not to interfere with the other branch of government," Panelo told reporters.



Panelo added, said the reshuffle was not an offshoot of the President's meeting with senators last week.

"I don't think there was an agenda. I don't think this is an offshoot," he said. - reports from Adrian Ayalin and Willard Cheng, ABS-CBN News