Leni embarks on own projects

MANILA, Philippines – After quitting her housing portfolio, Vice President Leni Robredo flew to Mindanao yesterday to check on the progress of her own anti-poverty projects in three provinces.

Robredo visited the project sites of Angat Buhay program in Compostela Valley, Agusan del Sur and Surigao del Norte and arranged dialogues with local officials as well as with victims of Typhoon Pablo.

Launched last October, the Angat-Buhay program is an initiative of the Office of the Vice President to facilitate partnerships between local government units and different stakeholders for addressing specific poverty-related problems.

In a television interview yesterday with ABS-CBN News, Robredo’s chief of staff Philip Dy said work continues for the Vice President even after her resignation as chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).

Dy also said Robredo had never complained about the President despite their differences on several issues.

“No, never. She’s been very professional in how she’s dealt with the President,” Dy pointed out.

Compostela Valley Gov. Tyrone Uy said Robredo’s visit had been arranged more than two weeks ago. He also said Robredo confided to him that she bore no grudge against the President.

“She told me she has no quarrel with the President and that she does not have any bad feeling with him,” Uy told The STAR. 

Robredo on Monday resigned as HUDCC chair after being told by Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. to desist from attending Cabinet meetings. Evasco took over Robredo’s HUDCC post.

Barred from Cabinet meetings, the Vice President said it would be difficult or even impossible for her to perform her duties as HUDCC chief, hence her decision to resign.

In Compostela Valley, Robredo told residents of NHA Housing Center in Barangay Lower Ulip in Monkayo town that she would continue checking on housing projects as giving shelter to the poor is really her advocacy.

“I also hope to be able to continue to share and, perhaps, give suggestions to Secretary Evasco Jr., who is now the chair of HUDCC,” she said.

Meanwhile, Robredo denied she was plotting to oust President Duterte, contrary to what Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez had insinuated.

“There’s no such thing (oust Duterte plot). I think people who know me well, like my partymates in the (Liberal Party), they know that I have reluctance to take on the leadership,” she said in an interview in Compostela Valley. “I think I don’t have that kind of political skill.”

On the statement of former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that she was the one who stole the vice presidency from him and not the other way around, Robredo said, “Between us, who has the history of stealing? I think it’s not me.”

She also shrugged off Marcos’ statement that she is a “hypocrite.”

The Vice President also denied presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella’s statement that Duterte felt “uncomfortable” with her after she joined political activities, especially the protest rallies last Nov. 30 against the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

She clarified that she only attended the awarding of individuals who fought the dictatorship at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City. – Edith Regalado