MANILA, Philippines — Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio will be briefed about the Office of the Vice President (OVP) programs for the last six years, but lawyer Barry Gutierrez said that it would be up to her if she would continue these initiatives.
Gutierrez, spokesperson of Vice President Leni Robredo, said during an interview with ABS-CBN’s Headstart on Tuesday that among the things that they would brief Duterte-Carpio on will include their anti-poverty project Angat Buhay and COVID-19-related programs like Vaccine Express and Bayanihan E-Konsulta.
“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.
“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,” he added.
READ: OVP’s Bayanihan E-Konsulta notes surge in COVID-19 calls; VP on graveyard shift
According to Gutierrez, they are unsure if the next Vice President would continue their programs given that she was designated as the incoming Education secretary, noting that based on experience, a vice president who gets appointed generally tends to focus on that department.
“I don’t know if […] the incoming Vice President will want to actually continue many of these initiatives, considering that she will be handling a government department,” Gutierrez said.
“Because as I’ve said, the main difference is she will be running an Executive department and in my experience, a Vice President that runs an Executive department generally focuses their work on that department,” she added.
As to whether a meeting between Robredo and Duterte-Carpio for the formal turnover has been ironed out, Gutierrez said that it would be up to the incoming Vice President if she prefers this to happen.
“Again, that will be really up to the Vice President-elect if she wants to have a personal meeting with VP Leni. Obviously, VP Leni will be more than happy to meet with her and discuss with her. This was the case in 2016. There was actually a private meeting with VP Leni and then outgoing Vice President Jejomar Binay,” Gutierrez said.
“So obviously, if Vice President-elect Sara Duterte would want to meet with VP Leni, that’s easy to arrange. I’m sure she will be very happy to have that meeting. But as of now, there has been no request made. It’s been—the initial meeting is between the teams. So we’ll wait and see. We have 30 days to go,” he added.
Duterte-Carpio was proclaimed as next Vice President last May 25, after a landslide victory where she got 32,208,417 votes — way ahead of Robredo’s running mate Senator Francis Pangilinan, who got 9,329,207 votes.
Previously, Duterte-Carpio’s camp said that they have sent out a letter to Robredo’s side seeking initial meetings for the transition. On Monday, OVP released copies of Robredo’s letter to Duterte-Carpio, congratulating her and vowing to make the transition as smooth as possible.