WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Leni Robredo, 14th vice president of the Republic of the Philippines, will be stepping down from office by noon on June 30, 2022.
The past six years have been a tumultuous one for Robredo, who had to juggle the vice presidency with leading the fragmented opposition forces against outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte. She was briefly appointed as housing czar, only for Duterte to ease her out of Cabinet meetings. She eventually resigned in 2016. Irked by her criticisms of the drug war, a spiteful Duterte later appointed Robredo as co-chair of his anti-drugs body, but he fired her after just 18 days. Robredo became the punching bag of pro-Duterte propagandists and trolls, who spewed the most vicious lies against her and her family.
Yet these attacks did not stop Robredo from reinventing the Office of the Vice President. Her flagship anti-poverty program Angat Buhay was widely praised for being quick and effective despite the OVP’s measly annual budget. The program, with help from its 372 partner-organizations, benefitted some 622,000 Filipinos across 223 cities and municipalities, using more than P520 million primarily sourced from donations from the private sector.
Robredo tried but failed to gun for the presidency in the high-stakes 2022 elections. She now plans to return to being a development worker and alternative lawyer for the poor and the marginalized.
She will be turning Angat Buhay, her flagship program as VP, into a non-governmental organization, eyeing it to become the “biggest volunteer movement” the country has ever seen. Robredo also plans to actively lead efforts to counter the disinformation plague in the Philippines.
In this diary, Rappler reporter Mara Cepeda documents Robredo’s final days as vice president.