No anti-poverty post for Leni

There won’t be a Cabinet post, and neither will vice presidentelect Leni Robredo get to head the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC).

President- elect Rodrigo Duterte has rejected suggestions to appoint Robredo to the NAPC.

Duterte said he is eyeing a woman from the Left to lead the agency, which serves as a coordinating and advisory body for social reform and poverty alleviation efforts.

“I’m looking at the Left. I’ll give it to the Left. I have a recommendation from the Left,” Duterte said in a press

conference Thursday night.

“That is one of the posts I’d like to concede to the Left. I’ll give it to a woman from the Left,” he added.

Earlier, incoming socioeconomic planning secretary Ernesto Pernia told ABS-CBN News Channel that he recommended that Robredo be named chief of NAPC.

Pernia believes Robredo, who previously said she wants to coordinate pro-poor programs, is “most suitable” for the post.

Duterte has been appointing progressives and people associated with communists to establish what he described as an “inclusive government.”

He has named former Anakpawis congressman Rafael Mariano as agrarian reform secretary and University of the Philippines professor Judy Taguiwalo as the next social welfare secretary.

Mariano and Taguiwalo were nominated to Duterte’s Cabinet by the National Democratic Front, which represents the communists in the peace talks with the government.

Silvestre Bello III, who used to lead the government panel that negotiated with the NDF, was named labor secretary.

Duterte has also bared plans to appoint Muslims to the Cabinet but it remains unsure which posts would be given to them. –