VICE President Leni Robredo is “at peace” with the result of the May 9 presidential elections despite her defeat to former senator and now President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., her spokesman lawyer Ibarra Gutierrez said yesterday.
“She’s good!” Gutierrez said of the Vice President in an interview with ANC. “To begin with, even before the election results came in, I think she was already in a good place. She was at peace. She was ready to accept whatever outcome would happen.”
Gutierrez said Robredo is now wrapping up work at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) after flying in last Saturday night from the United States where she accompanied her youngest daughter, Jillian, to her graduation from the New York University (NYU).
He said the Vice President has been working “non-stop” in the last six years and had to endure the “tiring and trying” last seven months since she declared her presidential candidacy.
“So I guess, she had the opportunity to recharge and she seems recharged and ready to finish out the last 30 days of her term in high spirits and with a renewed sense of energy,” Gutierrez said.
The former Akbayan party-list lawmaker could not say if Robredo still has plans to formally concede to Marcos, saying “everything that needs to be said has (already) been said.”
“She has been very clear from the start. That’s (concession) something that can still happen but it’s up to her,” he said, referring to Robredo’s call for her supporters to accept the result of the polls.
Gutierrez pointed out that Robredo waited for six years for Marcos to concede after she beat him in the 2016 vice presidential race but it did not happen since the son of the late dictator even questioned his defeat before the Supreme Court, which sits as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).
“We waited for six years on our end and that was never given to us in the aftermath of the 2016 election. The VP is someone who has always been very gracious to people she has met through her office,” he said.
Despite her loss, Gutierrez said the “pink movement,” which was fueled by the spirit of volunteerism, may continue and emerge as a force even bigger than the Liberal Party and the whole opposition.
“It is possible that some new movement, bigger than any individual party, will emerge. And you know, that’s what the Vice President has inspired in the last seven months, and we look forward to seeing that continue even after June 30 or until the expiration of her term,” he said.
Robredo is planning to re-launch the OVP’s Angat Buhay program as a non-government organization (NGO) with the biggest number of volunteers working to help indigents.
Gutierrez could not say yet who will lead the LP since Robredo will automatically stop being chairperson of the party once her term ends.
“So we had a lot of programs — Angat Buhay, we had disaster response, we had medical assistance. During COVID, she had plenty of initiatives, Vaccine Express, Bayanihan e-Konsulta, and so on and so forth,” he said.
He said the OVP also has plans to brief Vice President-elect Sara Duterte-Carpio on its many projects and programs to give her an idea before she formally assumes the post.
“Well, we will offer definitely to brief them on the entire scope of activities conducted by OVP over the last six years. So that will include all the flagship programs, that will include all the COVID initiatives, and it’s up to the team of the incoming Vice President whether she will want to actually receive this information and perhaps, more significantly, whether she would want to continue many of these programs,” Gutierrez said.
