Leni to launch largest volunteer network in Phl
Vice President Leni Robredo will transform her office’s flagship anti-poverty program Angat Buhay into a non-government organization dedicated to helping the poor.
“On the first day of July, we will launch the Angat Buhay NGO,” Robredo told supporters during a thanksgiving event at the Ateneo de Manila University campus in Quezon City Friday night.
“We will establish the widest volunteer network in our country. Our mission to help those in the fringes of our society will continue… We will not choose who we will help. We will not turn our backs on anyone. We will show the full force of radical love,” she added.
Launched at the start of Robredo’s term in 2016, the Angat Buhay program connected volunteers and donors from the private sector to the most disadvantaged communities in the country.
Robredo said she would use the same template of the program for her planned NGO.
“We were able to do this despite the small budget and machinery of the Office of the Vice President… Now, we are more organized. We have a lot of people’s councils. There are a lot of groups that were formed within our ranks,” she said.
“We have shown what we can reach if all of us would contribute (to a cause)… The entire Philippines, even the whole world, is a witness to our bayanihan,” she added.
Robredo has yet to directly concede defeat to presumptive president Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., who is leading by a wide margin in the latest partial unofficial tally of election returns.
But in her post-election messages, including during Friday’s thanksgiving activity, the Vice President urged her supporters to accept the voice of the electorate.
“As the picture becomes clearer, we have to start accepting that the result of this election is not in line with our dreams… We have to accept the decision of the majority,” she said.
Robredo maintained that the election is just the beginning of a much larger battle.
She highlighted the issue of disinformation that contributed to the results of the polls.
“I will focus my energy to fight disinformation, and I urge you to join me in this,” said the Vice President.
“We need to be a movement that will fight for the truth. We need to open the eyes of those we meet on how lies are being spread,” she added.
Despite the results of the election, Robredo assured her supporters that nothing was wasted and that they did not lose.
“Our efforts will only go to waste if we stop and return to what we were used to,” she said. “This day is not the end, but a sign of the start of a new chapter. And we will write it together… Let us continue our fight for the Philippines that we all dream of.”