Tag Archives: VP Leni

komentaryo

Leni and the Liberals

Duterte has made unity easy. He, along with the Marcoses, make the enemies of 2022 clear.

The vision for 2022 elections is also easy to unite on: unseat Duterte, block Marcos, stop the attacks on the people, recover from the incompetence and corruption, and take back democracy. The first step was always to build the broadest, widest coalition of anti-Duterte block-Marcos actors, that could in turn unite a majority of citizens, who are then empowered and emboldened to work on pushing for the candidate we all can believe will work on the vision for a better 2022.

VP Leni is certainly one of those candidates. Were Ka Leody not running, she would be alone in the uncompromising stand against the Marcoses getting back in power, and against the violence and incompetence of Duterte. Isko remains a distinct possibility if we are going to go beyond his budget-Duterte rhetoric and discuss instead what he is capable of doing, given the platform he is running on. But VP Leni, especially given everything she mapped out in a talk with The Rotary Club on October 14 is far far ahead of this pack, if we are thinking saying the right things for middle class support, and if we are thinking of who is on our side.

BUT the promise of unity is not one she can make, the notion of “independence” that she carries nothing more but an act. A symbolic act she admits, but now being revealed to be an act and not much else. Yet.

This has little to do with who she included in her slate—I can accept as strategic the need to build a slate that can beat the Cayetanos and Tulfos of this world, and therefore the need to have Binay, Escudero, Legarda on that list.

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The VP’s missed chance, the President’s opportunity

The conversation about the occupation of the idle government housing units in Pandi Bulacan has unsurprisingly settled simplistically on the fact that members of the urban poor, all members of Kadamay, took over these houses outside of the process set for them by the public housing system of government.

Yet one wonders how many of those who insist that the urban poor did not follow due process, actually know what that process is. Because even Vice President Leni Robredo, during her short stint as HUDCC Chairperson, admitted that one of the many reasons the poor were unable to avail of government housing, one of the reasons why she was saying the housing sector was in “shambles” and in “crisis,” is because of this long-drawn out process that they are required to go through just to be awarded a house.

This is VP Leni, the one who is purportedly out to protect the previous administration. And yet there she was, admitting to the failure of the same administration in actually delivering what it had promised. No, not just houses, but houses that are actually going to be lived in; not just houses, but livable structures. (more…)

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Losing Leni

I have no love lost for Vice President Leni Robredo, but I would rather she was VP than Bongbong Marcos.

Having said that, one wishes she knew what she was doing. That she would have the sense to have a real communications team, one that will have her back and will not allow her to make a fool of herself. One that will tell her to step back, take stock, and regroup. A trusted group of people who will remind her that as Vice President she does have limitations, even as she might insist on her freedoms, and who will teach her how to push forward and how to retreat.

If there’s anything VP Leni and President Duterte have in common, it is this: both of them do not have people who are in control of their communications. Neither of them have people who ensure that they will be protected even from their own pronouncements. Neither of them have communications teams that already see the damage before it’s even done. (more…)

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RH push overshadowed by Sotto, Leni condom-talk

Given all that has been happening, half borne of the discourse of confusion and noise, the other half just the utter lack of information, I almost missed what might be one of the best New Year’s presents we could get from President Duterte: his Executive Order 12.

Here, the President essentially orders all relevant government offices “to intensify and accelerate the implementation of critical actions necessary to attain and sustain “zero unmet need for modern family planning” for all poor households by 2018, and all of Filipinos thereafter, within the context of the RPRH Law and its implementing rules.”

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