Leni for President? ‘Achieve unity first’ (1)
I knew that the Office of the Vice President would be a very good platform to further my anti-poverty advocacies. The problem was I had very little mandate, and the office had limited resources for programs. The OVP has one of the smallest budgets in the
office’s programs and advocacies, notwithstanding a meager budget and being an outlier in the Duterte administration.
As she winds down her term, everyone’s asking: Will she run for President? So far she has been consistent in her answer: It’s still too early, but she also wants to determine if she can “create the broadest possible unity among groups that are seeking change in 2022.”
In this exclusive, two-part email interview with Daily Tribune, the 56-year-old lawyer and former Camarines Sur 3rd District Representative reflects on the achievements of the Office of the Vice President (OVP), including the challenges she hurdled in the performance of her duties.
What’s keeping you busy lately, aside from pandemic relief efforts?
Much of our time is still dedicated to our Covid-19 response efforts. Our operations have expanded over the past year to cover various needs: Personal protective equipment and medical supplies for our hospitals and institutions, free transportation and dormitories for our frontliners, support for testing and vaccination efforts of local government units (LGU), relief assistance and livelihood for sectors and communities, interventions to help address distance learning concerns, job opportunities for those who lost work because of the pandemic, etc. Our Covid operations started in a bid to just fill in the gaps. But as we saw the extent of the problems, we eventually decided to look at our plans and our budget, to make sure that everything that we do now is in response to the current needs.
As of December 2020, we have mobilized a total of P441.14 million worth of resources, helping 381 communities all over the country, in collaboration with some 330 organizations.
Going into 2021, we also jumped back full-time into our regular projects under Angat Buhay. Since this is our last year in office, we want to ensure that our partner communities will be able to carry our interventions forward on their own — to make it sustainable even after our term ends. This includes an assessment of the existing interventions, how these can be improved, and other assistance needed. It has been quite an adjustment for us to do a big part of the work remotely now, but in collaboration with our partners from the local governments, sectors, and communities, we are able to manage.
Angat Buhay was launched in October 2016, five months af ter you assumed the vice presidency. Was the program a direct response to the poverty you saw extensively during the election campaign period?
The inspiration for Angat Buhay runs much deeper. I was an alternative lawyer for a decade, and my work allowed me to be immersed in the grassroots, a unique opportunity to directly find out about the daily lives, struggles, and aspirations of the communities and sectors we were helping. It is true, both then and now, that if we take the time to listen, those who are in need know what kind of support would be most beneficial to them.
When I became a member of Congress, I saw the office as a continuation of my advocacies. Many of the bills I authored were for the empowerment of basic sectors. I was also very much involved in constituency work, devoting half of every week to this, so I would know firsthand the needs of the people on the ground.
I knew that the Office of the Vice President would be a very good platform to further my anti-poverty advocacies. The problem was I had very little mandate, and the office had limited resources for programs. The OVP has one of the smallest budgets in the bureaucracy. Going into my term, we conceptualized Angat Buhay with these in mind, to still be able to pursue our anti-poverty advocacy despite the limitations.
In October 2016, you were still Housing Secretary but encountering difficulties working with the Duterte administration. What was the status of HUDCC (Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council) projects when you were asked to stop attending Cabinet meetings?
When I left my post at HUDCC, I submitted a report through then-Cabinet Secretary Evasco, discussing the state of the government housing sector as I found it. It included several recommendations, which would be crucial to ensuring that the housing sector delivered in its obligation to improve the lives of Filipino families.
These included a shift in the metrics by which housing agencies are monitored; streamlining red tape; providing incentives for LGU to strengthen their urban or rural development planning capacities; institutionalizing government’s post-disaster shelter response; mitigating other risks; and addressing institutional limitations in HUDCC. It was a welcome development that a few years after this recommendation, Congress passed a law creating the Department of Human Settlements.
In the five months I spent as Housing chair, we had been able to start the work on these recommendations. We reduced documentary requirements for processing housing projects — from 27 documents to just nine — and implemented a special lane for processing certificates of tax exemption for transfers of raw land for urgent socialized housing projects.
For adopting a city-wide approach to localized and low-cost housing, there was an ongoing initiative providing P1 billion worth of Urban Development Assistance Fund as incentive to LGU to develop plans for socialized and low-cost housing near livelihood opportunities. We also introduced new policy directions based on consultations with the poor and marginalized sectors.
When you resigned from the Cabinet in December 2016 and plunged into work independently, what was it like to ask for support from the private sector for OVP programs? Do you think quitting the Cabinet was somehow a blessing in disguise, since it allowed you to serve your mandate on your own terms?
Going into the start of my term, I was determined to fulfill my promise to work for the benefit of all Filipinos, especially those in the margins. I viewed the opportunity to serve in HUDCC as another chance to do this. But regardless of the presence or absence of a Cabinet portfolio, I had been working on advocacies anyway.
In fact, our work at the OVP, under Angat Buhay, was happening alongside my work in HUDCC. So our collaboration with private sector partners was already there while I was Housing chief, and thankfully, long after my stint had ended there. When I decided to step down as HUDCC chair, we took in Housing as another pillar for Angat Buhay as well.
With our flagship program centered on collaboration, we have worked hard to gain the trust of the private sector and the general public. We have set our own transparency measures and aim to abide by those set by regulatory agencies. We pursued and achieved a 9001:2015 certification under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), for which we got recertified late last year.
We have received an unqualified opinion from the Commission on Audit for three straight years.
Angat Buhay has six advocacy areas: Food security and nutrition; housing and resettlement; public education; rural development; universal healthcare; and women empowerment. The scope or extent of work in these areas of concern is backbreaking, if not nerve-wracking.
Over the past five years, each advocacy area has shown promise. I believe that the key has been our efforts to be inclusive in identifying and addressing the concerns of communities in need. We are able to find sound solutions because we listen not only to those who can help us provide assistance — private sector partners, LGU, regional offices of government agencies, civil society organizations — but most especially to our partner communities. Taking the time to visit and consult them about their needs has been instrumental in implementing solutions that are receptive to their needs.
As of December 2020, we have mobilized a total of P441.14 million worth of resources, helping 381 communities all over the country, in collaboration with some 330 organizations.