Vice President Leni Robredo would be “more than happy” to meet with her successor, Vice President-elect Sara Duterte, in person for the transition process between their offices, her spokesperson said on Tuesday, May 31.
Vice Presidential spokesman Barry Gutierrez said they are leaving the decision to Duterte on whether she will have a personal meeting with Robredo.
“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,” he said in an interview with ANC’s Headstart.
In a letter dated May 30, Robredo wrote Duterte to congratulate her and told her they are ready to meet with her team to ensure a “smooth” transition.
Her camp sent the letter even as Duterte’s spokesperson, Liloan Mayor Christina Frasco, clarified that the meeting will only be between their transition teams and “not personally between the outgoing Vice President and the incoming Vice President.”
Robredo designated her chief-of-staff, Philip Dy, to head the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) transition team.
READ:VP Leni congratulates VP-elect Sara Duterte; ready for meeting on ‘smooth transition’
Gutierrez said it is also up to Duterte whether to continue Robredo’s flagship programs, among which are the Angat Buhay and Covid-19 initiatives.
“We will offer definitely to brief them on the entire scope of activities conducted by OVP over the last six years...It’s up to the team of the incoming Vice President whether she will want to actually receive this information and...whether she would want to continue many of these programs,” he 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,” the spokesman added.
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In their initial meeting, Gutierrez said they will also discuss whether the incoming Vice President will continue holding office at the Quezon City Reception House.
“The most basic level of preparing for transition—physical preparation of the office....we’re not yet quite sure whether she would want to hold office at the same location,” he noted.
“But again, because she will be handling the Department of Education (DepEd), she’ll have another separate office as Cabinet secretary. So, these are the things that I think will have to be discussed,” Gutierrez said.