Vice President Leni Robredo spoke at a meet-and-greet event on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, at the Saint Louis School Center in Baguio City. (Photo from her Facebook account)
MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo, who is running for the presidency, appealed to her supporters on Tuesday to take their discussions about candidates in the 2022 elections to a higher level, beyond feelings of gratitude to any of them, especially during the campaign period that starts in February.
Robredo made the call at a meet-and-greet event hosted by the Saint Louis School Center in Baguio City and attended by various religious and civil society groups, including nuns and teachers.
“Of course, we need all the prayers in the world,” she said, speaking mostly in Filipino and partly in English. “My belief really is that the presidency is destiny. Whatever we do, what will happen is what has been set by the Lord. But for me, maybe we can elevate the discourse.”
“Let’s think, for example, whenever a candidate faces us, how we can convince our countrymen: Let’s not just look at our debt of gratitude. But let’s look at the capacity [of the candidate] to transform the system,” she added.
Robredo also asked her supporters that, in convincing others to vote for her, they should go past beyond just selling her as a “kind” and “better” government employee.
“The groups that you talk with, there are different styles of convincing them,” she said. “But I hope the way of convincing them is not just: ‘Leni is a better employee than so and so.’ It should not be like that because the coming elections are much more than that.”
“Many things are happening that are beyond our control,” she added. “But can we just do those things over which we can control? The campaign — the official campaign period — will start on February 8. So I will be back after February 8 with the entire slate. Between now and February 8, the groups that are here now, maybe we can get together and find ways of how we can elevate this fight into something that the country will benefit from.”
Robredo, an opposition candidate, has been known for the anti-poverty programs being implemented by the Office of the Vice President, and more recently, for programs responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the 2022 national elections, Robredo crafted a platform that she calls the “freedom from COVID-19 plan.”
Under this plan, she hopes to strengthen the healthcare system — even with the downward trend in COVID-19 cases — so that hospitals would be ready to accommodate patients and everyone would have access to vaccines.
The plan also includes providing social aid for households, communities, and businesses affected by the lockdowns due to the pandemic.
It also aims to reform the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), the state-run insurer that has been plagued with allegations of corruption and incompetence in the last three years. Reforming PhilHealth, as she envisions it, would ensure the indigent patients could get treatment.
READ: Robredo’s freedom from COVID plan: Strong PH healthcare system needed to spur recovery
According to Robredo, she and her team have already pointed out possible sources of funding for her ambitious program, totaling around P500 billion.
Around P100 billion of that would be used as a stimulus fund for micro, small, and medium enterprises.
READ: Robredo says she knows where to source COVID response fund if elected president
READ: If elected president, Robredo wants to set aside P100-B stimulus packages for MSMEs
For her campaign, Robredo has relied on a grassroots approach run by volunteers trying to woo people into voting for her. However, there were criticisms in the past months that her volunteers had been taking an elitist approach, prompting her to issue reminders about how talking to people should be done.
In Baguio, she reiterated her stance that her supporters should refrain from emulating the bad traits of other camps.
She said she didn’t think that religious groups were doing that.
“But for those who are really enthusiastic in their support, this is just a reminder that we should not imitate what we don’t like,” she said.
“Sometimes we get lost in […] everything that’s been happening. So another point: Let’s convince our colleagues that we should be the ones to start. Let’s be the ones to start a different kind of fight that can make us proud of ourselves when all this is over.”
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