VP Leni Champions Anti-Poverty Advocacy

To Serve the Filipino: Our Greatest Call

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Please take your seats.

Mr. Jackie Rodriguez, President, Rotary Club of Manila; Mr. Hermie Esguerra, Vice President of Rotary Club of Manila; the past district governors present; past presidents who are present; the Rotary Club of Manila Board of Directors, Officers, and members present; the other Rotary Clubs under District 3810 present; honored guests; ladies and gentlemen: Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat!

The last time I attended a Rotary Club of Manila event was in 2015 when I was still a Member of the House of Representatives. Much has happened since then, and the truth is that, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would become Vice President—that I would have to defend my office against the scion of the former dictator, that I would be appointed twice to a post and removed both times, that I would be fighting an army of trolls on social media day after day, that I would be facing criminal complaints for sedition and contempt that seek to threaten me and my office, and that I will be the head of the opposition to a very popular President.

When I launched my campaign for the Vice Presidency, initial surveys showed that only 1% of the voter base knew who I was, putting me last among the six vice presidential candidates. So I had to work doubly hard. Together with my very small team, we travelled to many communities. We tried to reach as many of our kababayans as possible. We listened to the stories of people from all walks of life. We trekked on muddy trails to the farthest villages and rode in small boats and habal-habals to the most geographically isolated areas. In the end, we covered the most number of cities and towns among all the candidates for a national position.

It was campaign season, yes. But thinking about it now, it was essentially what I had been doing for almost all my life. My life’s work revolved around the poorest of the poor and all our efforts were devoted to finding means to balance the inequalities pervading in our midst. In those small trails and in the company of simple folks, I was at home. That was where I found myself. So, for my foray into politics to be meaningful to me, I continued with what I had been doing all my life—to be where help was needed the most.

I was taken for granted at the start of the campaign, but as the competition heated up, so did the viciousness of the attacks against me. Some said I was better off at home because I am a woman. Others said I was incapable of the job at hand, because I was only my husband’s widow. It is true: I was used to quietly doing my work in the sidelines while my husband, Jesse, ran Naga City. But what they didn’t know was that I was used to a difficult life and was comfortable with it. I had a lot of crosses to bear over the years. I was already married, was raising my children, and was working full-time while I was studying law. When I became a lawyer, I chose to serve indigent clients by joining the Public Attorney’s Office. After my stint at PAO, I continued lawyering for the poor for more than a decade as a part of an NGO called SALIGAN.

When my husband suddenly died in the unfortunate plane crash, I was not just left alone to singlehandedly raise our three daughters, but I had to run for Congress without him and without money of my own. I survived a very harsh election and defeated a well-entrenched political dynasty in our province. My stint in Congress was supposed to be a one-term thing, because I was only filling up the vacuum left by my husband. But destiny brought me here. I held a strong conviction that I cannot let the attacks and difficulties thrown my way hold me back from doing the work that I was tasked to do for our people.

Now that I am already halfway through my term, this is the same conviction that inspires me and my team to work harder every single day and to do better. Despite the political noise and the baseless attacks against me and our office, seeing the faces of those in need in the poorest, farthest, and smallest communities is precisely what keeps me going.

When I assumed office in 2016, my team and I took it upon ourselves to focus on championing the causes of the poor and disenfranchised. Unfortunately, the Vice President’s constitutionally-designated mandate is merely succession. This means we did not have the budget nor the manpower for big programs. But we are not and have never been discouraged by this; in fact, it drove us to reinvent ourselves so that we can contribute to the government’s anti-poverty efforts. And so, together with my very young and very small team, we turned the Office of the Vice President from a mere ceremonial office into an advocacy-heavy organization.

The result is Angat Buhay, an anti-poverty program that would bring our feet and our hearts to communities that are in most need. With the help of development organizations and private partners, and with almost no help from government, Angat Buhay became our brave response to uplift the lives of the pamilya na nasa laylayan ng lipunan, believing that for every family we help, an entire community can break free from poverty.

Our three and a half years in office have been, to say the least, extremely challenging. But we have seen the immense value of choosing to speak truth to power when it matters, of breaking down walls of apathy and division through empathy and courage, and going to places that were inconvenient but where there is the greatest need. Let me share with you some of our most memorable stories and the faces of transformation that fuel us to keep making the best better.

In Sumilao, Bukidnon in Mindanao, where students are mostly sons and daughters of farmers, access to quality education has remained an elusive dream despite the efforts of the local government. At the Sumilao National High School, students are forced to walk 13 kilometers each way, every day, to get to school, passing through raging rivers and rocky roads. The only public transport is a habal-habal, which costs 120 pesos each way, a price too expensive for the children and their families. This is one of the reasons why Sumilao has a very high dropout and absenteeism rate.

Thank you to the Rotary Club of Makati—we were able to put up a female dormitory inside the school, where students who come from poor families and who live the farthest can now stay for free. Now, the girls do not have to walk for hours to reach school and will not be too tired and hungry to understand their lessons. Just recently, we also put up a male dormitory with the help of ANCOP USA. We will officially turn over the dorm this coming January 29, on Wednesday, and we are hopeful that in the coming months, the attendance rate of students will continue to dramatically improve, and they will now be motivated to study harder.

We have also constructed similar dormitories in other parts of the country, like in Siayan in Zamboanga del Norte and Balangkayan and Salcedo in Eastern Samar, with the help of the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation and the Metrobank Foundation. The Rotary Club of Makati also helped us with the construction of a girls’ dormitory in Pacuan National High School in La Libertad, Negros Oriental. By working together, we can show our youth the pathway to a better life, a chance to dream and hope for a better future.

As of today, Angat Buhay has touched the lives of almost 400,000 beneficiaries in 200 cities and municipalities nationwide, with the help of over 300 partner organizations—including various chapters of the Rotary Club in the Philippines.

With the help of various partners from the private and development sector, we have also been able to answer our people’s calls for help in times of emergency. On July 27, 2019, just before dawn, a 5.4- and a 5.9-magnitude earthquake shook the archipelago and woke the residents of Itbayat in Batanes. Homes and schools crumbled to the ground and government and commercial buildings were reduced to piles of debris. Even the famous churches and limestone houses of Batanes, known for their resilience, were no match to the force of the earthquake.

Just days after the earthquake, I flew to Itbayat to personally assess the damage, provide relief items, and find out how to help the victims. And we are very fortunate to have found dependable partners like the Rotary Anns of the Rotary Club of San Juan North, who have been instrumental in delivering immediate relief assistance to Itbayat. We have been able to respond to similar calamities like the earthquakes in North Cotabato and Davao del Sur, and, recently, Typhoons Tisoy and Ursula, because of our private partners.

A few days ago, the eruption of Taal Volcano forced thousands of people in Batangas to flee their homes. I first visited the evacuees who were temporarily sheltered in basketball courts and in schools in Batangas last week, and I have personally seen how heartbreaking their situations are. While there were enough donations for food and water, there was lack of proper toilets, and many were forced to sleep on used carton boxes and in cramped facilities. Thanks to the generosity of various partners and donors, including the Rotary Club of San Juan North and San Juan del Monte, we were able to immediately respond to their needs. Since our first visit, we have already assigned a permanent team on the ground to continue with the relief operations.

Two days ago, I was back with my team to visit the evacuation centers in Mendez-Nuñez in Cavite, Nasugbu, Tuy and Lian, all in Batangas, which were not receiving as much help as the others. This time, aside from the mattresses, blankets, water containers, pails, food and toiletry packs that we brought, we were also able to provide hot meals. We also brought several doctors who were able to provide medical check-ups for the evacuees, conducted storytelling and art sessions for the children, and provided laughter yoga session for our traumatized kababayans. And we were able to do this much because of the generosity of our private partners.

In many parts of our country, however, disasters have taken on a different form—one that is shaped by men and existing political, economic, and social conditions. In Marawi City in Lanao del Sur, the five-month siege that took place almost three years ago forced thousands to flee their homes and seek refuge in crowded evacuation centers. Two days into the siege, our office partnered with Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro, initially to help with the relief operations, and to provide immediate assistance to displaced families who sought refuge in towns near Marawi. But when we personally saw the condition of the evacuees, with no means of livelihood, we knew that we needed to come up with something more than just a one-time, big-time effort.

Taralbe Ombus was one of the thousands whose home was terribly destroyed, including her mini-grocery and the harvest from their farm. She and her family ended up in an evacuation center in the nearby town of Saguiaran. She said staying there was like “being in hell,” with no privacy, soaked constantly by rain, breathing in smelly water rising from the canal, insufficient relief goods, and having to share public restrooms with hundreds and hundreds of people.

We left Marawi with broken hearts and immediately sought the help of our partners in constructing an Angat Buhay transitory village, giving families, including that of Nanay Taralbe, a safe and secure space to restart their lives. We were able to construct 60 units at first, with the 7.4 million pesos raised by the group that calls itself Piso Para sa Laban ni Leni—a donation drive initially intended to help settle the required cash deposit for the VP electoral protest, but which I could not accept because I was barred from receiving personal donations. Now, we already have 72 shelters and mobilized more than 13 million pesos worth of resources for the Angat Buhay village. Aside from houses, we also built classrooms, toy libraries, and are providing livelihood opportunities to residents, whose future have been dramatically and painfully changed.

Again, we were able to do these because of the unconditional generosity of our private partners—a unique group of people composed of private corporations, religious groups, the academe, development partners, and even ordinary private individuals who broke down walls and worked together to create a thriving community for the sake of our Muslim brothers and sisters. Just last month, we were there with the Embassy of Sweden, who turned over IKEA furniture to the residents of the Angat Buhay village in Marawi. The Rotary Club of San Juan del Monte also donated rolls of cloth for the weavers of Brgy. Dayawan and dressmakers of Brgy. Sagonsongan. And we are looking forward to creating more sustainable jobs and livelihood opportunities in the coming months.

These transformations we see among our people drive us to do the work that we do, and they keep me going despite the challenges of being Vice President at a time such as this. That in many of these places, we are changing the nation one family, one barangay, one community at a time.

Even in my very short, 18-day stint at ICAD, the same power that comes from transformative action moves me. I knew that my time will be short and I was only being given a very small window to introduce change. So I immediately buckled down to work the very day I was appointed, talked to as many experts, government agencies, and advocacy groups as possible, to be able to come up with an evidence-based, data-driven plan of action that will amend and supplement the current set-up. The result was a 40-page report, with a long list of recommendations to correct what is wrong with the current campaign. I brought a copy here with me for your reference later on. If you scan through it, you will notice that there are 168 footnotes, all showing that the data that we used all came from government agencies. We made sure to do that because we knew that the integrity of the report will be put to question.

I never regretted accepting the ICAD appointment. I believed then—as I do now—that if we planted just a little seed of hope, just some sense that the war against drugs can be done better, some way to ensure that both our people and our institutions are protected from abuses, then all the sacrifices are worth it. The silver lining is that we found allies who share the same clarity of vision for our country. When I reported my findings to the public, several agencies welcomed my recommendations as a fresh take on the fight against illegal drugs. In fact, some officials agreed that there is a need to establish scientific baselines and achievable objectives. It is our hope that through these recommendations, senseless killings will stop, drug supply will be constricted, and a more balanced approach will be taken in the campaign against illegal drugs.

Despite my removal as ICAD Co-Chair, I vowed that I will do everything I can to still help in the fight against illegal drugs. In fact, we are now working with several partners from civil society as we continue to push for a more effective community-based rehabilitation and reintegration program, based on our documented best practices.

We need to do everything we can to uplift the lives of our people. We owe it to the families who have lost so many of their innocent loved ones in senseless bloodshed and violence. We owe it to those who are struggling to rebuild their lives, hoping that they can have a second chance. We are doing these because we must choose to do the right thing, even if it is the difficult choice.

In the past three and a half years, we learned that the more we give of ourselves for the last, the least, and the lost with no thought of return, the more we gain. That when we heed the Rotarian call to serve and help our fellow Filipinos, that is where we truly find purpose and success. So to all the Rotarians here today, we hope that you will join us in our journey to uplift the lives of the Filipino people. They deserve our very best.

Thank you very much! Mabuhay po kayong lahat!