MANILA – Malacañang on Monday said former President Fidel V. Ramos’ concerns are “worth looking into” especially regarding foreign relations.
“Former President Ramos is a senior statesman and he’s acting, in a sense, like a father. He’s not referring to the actual actions. He’s referring to the foreign relations that tend to be affected by the President’s language,” Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in a media interview.
In his two-part opinion piece for the Manila Bulletin last Oct. 8, Ramos said: “In the overall assessment by this writer, we find our Team Philippines losing in the first 100 days of Du30’s administration – and losing badly. This is a huge disappointment and let-down to many of us.”
Ramos added that the President could have addressed other problems such as poverty alleviation and improving Filipinos’ quality of life “if he had hit the ground running instead of being stuck in unending controversies about extra-judicial killings of drug suspects and in his ability at using cuss-words and insults instead of civilized language.”
Abella reacted: “He has his opinion and he has concerns, especially regarding foreign relations and these are also worth looking into.”
Ramos’ opinion was published two days after his former national security adviser Jose Almonte described President Duterte’s 100 days as ‘exceptional,’ particularly in terms of addressing insurgency, broken politics and monopolized business.
Almonte, however, advised President Duterte to make his colorful language ‘colorless’ in dealing with the international criticisms on the government’s intensified campaign against illegal drugs.
“So there are really mixed reactions and while they maybe some concerns, we’d also like to, you know, at the end summarize that the President is a man of action and really we need to appreciate that more,” Abella said.
Describing President Duterte as a listener, Abella said “we can expect he also has his own decision-making processes and so may respond in a mature way also.”
Ramos, the country’s president from 1992 to 1998, was among the known personalities who convinced Duterte to run in the last May 9 elections.
With a pledge to eradicate illegal drugs, criminality and corruption, President Duterte won with 16 million votes.
In first three months in office, President Duterte’s war on drugs was a ‘complete’ success, according to the Malacanang.
Police data showed that war on drugs has left nearly 1,500 drug pushers and users killed in legitimate police operations, 22,000 drug offenders arrested, over 700,000 surrendered and Php 8.21 billion worth of drugs seized.
As a result, the crime rate also went down by almost 50 percent.