A recent YouTube video has used a truncated clip to paint Vice President and presidential aspirant Leni Robredo as being unable to answer an question she was asked during an online forum.
The unflattering clip in the video uploaded Jan. 2 by the KLOROX BOYS channel shows Robredo giving an incomplete response to the question, “How different a president would you be?”, apparently to support the video’s title:
LENI ROBREDO NA UTAL UTAL NANG TINANONG: HOW DIFFERENT A PRESIDENT WILL YOU BE (Robredo stammers when asked: How different a president will you be)?
In reality, the clip, inserted as an overlay at the 0:50 mark in the video, cuts off Robredo midsentence while she was answering how she would respond to crises and how different she would be from the country’s other presidents, especially the two women leaders, Corazon Aquino and Gloria Arroyo.
The video only included the following:
Rotary Club (RC) of Manila member: How different a president would you be? Because our women presidents had really a bad time. They were faced by coup, economic crisis destabilization and a military that lacked discipline. How will you contain them?
Robredo: Sir, it is very very difficult to go into specifics now.
RC Manila member: How different a president would you be, ma’am?
Robredo: To the two other women presidents?
RC Manila member: How different a president would you be, madam vice president?
Robredo: Compared to all the other presidents sir or just to the two women presidents?
RC Manila member: How different a president would you be, ma’am?
(off-screen): I don’t think Tony’s hearing the clarification
(off-screen): Maybe VP Leni you can answer it in the context of all the other presidents and in particular of the two prior female presidents.
Robredo: You know this is a very extraordinary time in our history. Unang-una (First of all), we’re in the middle of the pandemic so my presidency will be very different from the previous presidencies in the sense that I will be assuming the office in the middle of a terrible crisis that we are in, so the focus of everything will be really controlling the disease.
The presenter also omitted the date when the event took place. It was the Rotary Club of Manila’s Oct. 14, 2021 membership meeting where Robredo was the guest. The online event was livestreamed on Rappler's YouTube channel.
The original video shows Robredo's lengthy reply starting at the 56:44 mark:
SPEAKER | KLOROX BOYS | Excerpts from ORIGINAL |
(off-screen) | Maybe VP Leni you can answer it in the context of all the other presidents and in particular of the two prior female presidents. | Maybe VP Leni you can answer it in the context of all the other presidents and in particular of the two prior female presidents. Tony’s having a bad connection |
Robredo | You know this is a very extraordinary time in our history. Unang-una (First of all), we’re in the middle of the pandemic so my presidency will be very different from the previous presidencies in the sense that I will be assuming the office in the middle of a terrible crisis that we are in, so the focus of everything will be really controlling the disease. | You know this is a very extraordinary time in our history. Unang-una (First of all), we’re in the middle of the pandemic so my presidency will be very different from the previous presidencies in the sense that I will be assuming the office in the middle of a terrible crisis that we are in, so the focus of everything will be really controlling the disease. It will be a whole-of-government approach. One of the things we will look into is how the budget can be realigned to make it more pandemic focused, that is one. Number two, I will be giving a lot of effort into fixing the bureaucracy and strengthening the institutions. … I will be doing a lot of effort into making sure that all the systems that will make corruption very difficult will be at hand. A lot of focus will be poured into making sure that whatever little budget, whatever little money we have will be judiciously and prudently used for what we need now. In relation to the other two women presidents I feel that decisiveness does not anything to do with gender for me government. An efficient government is a government that gets the job done and that is exactly what we have shown at the OVP … We have seen decisiveness from many women leaders all over the world as they take the lead in the frontlines against this pandemic… I think this also bears pointing out because it is easy to equate being a strong and decisive leader with brashness and aggression … This should not be the case. Being a strong and decisive leader means nurturing and empowering others to become the best version of themselves … I think we were able to showcase that the five-and-a-half years that I was vice president. |
The lifted clip starts at the 55:06 mark with the question from RC Manila Director-Elect Tony Lopez during the event’s open forum. Robredo’s response ends at 1:00:38.
The video has elicited at least 24,000 views, 576 likes and 203 comments.
The KLOROX BOYS channel has 17,500 subscribers and 2.58 million total views over 208 videos since being created on March 12, 2017.
The same edited clip was previously uploaded on TikTok by user “jessasusada009” on Oct. 15, where it has amassed over one million views, 39,700 likes, 12,800 comments and 8,019 shares. (RP)
References
Jessasusada009. (2021, October 15). #bbm #bbmparin #bbm2022 #bbmfor2022president #bbmlangsakalam. [Video]. Tiktok. https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSeHWnsoY/
KLOROX BOYS. (2022, January 2). LENI ROBREDO NA UTAL UTAL NANG TINANONG: HOW DIFFERENT A PRESIDENT WILL YOU BE? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZEIK8WAxW0
Rappler. (2021, October 14). ICYMI: Rotary Club of Manila's meeting with VP Leni Robredo. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAfsMIuvn1g