Leni disinvited to vin d’honneur

MANILA, Philippines – Vice President Leni Robredo was disinvited by Malacañang to the first vin d’honneur of President Duterte, her spokesperson said.

“Our office received an invitation to the vin d’honneur via email last Dec. 28,” Georgina Hernandez said in a brief statement to explain the conspicuous absence of Robredo at the traditional New Year reception for the diplomatic corps at the Palace yesterday.

“On Jan. 4, Malacañang called the office to retract the invitation, stating that the guest list was limited,” she said.

And as Robredo stated when she resigned from the Cabinet in December, her office would run on a reduced budget this year.

Robredo had no public engagements yesterday morning, according to her office. She was, however, scheduled to speak at the 35th Chinese General Hospital and Medical Center residents’ graduation in San Juan City at 7 p.m.

The disinvite came after Duterte told Robredo to stop attending Cabinet meetings last month due to “irreconcilable differences.”

Robredo and Duterte have yet to talk since the former quit her post as chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council last Dec. 5 after she was barred from attending Cabinet meetings. 

Duterte said he excluded Robredo from Cabinet meetings after she attended protest actions calling for his ouster, which the Vice President strongly denied. 

In a previous interview, Robredo said she tried her best to reach out to the President after her resignation but “it appears that he doesn’t want to talk to me.”

Robredo, however, said she and the President were not enemies.  

The Liberal Party, which she chairs, has no capability of ousting Duterte, with only a few members remaining in the party, Robredo said.

Lower budget

Robredo has P428.6 million for 2017, P71.4 million less than the P500 million budgeted for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) in 2016. 

She presumably inherited at least half of last year’s funding from her predecessor, Jejomar Binay, when she assumed office last June 30.        

Duterte proposed the reduction in Robredo’s outlay when he submitted the 2017 budget to Congress in August, months before her resignation from his Cabinet.        

In a television interview after Duterte’s budget submission, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said Robredo was happy with the reduced funding for her office.   

“I discussed with her the reduction in her budget and she is very happy with it. She is still organizing her vision for her office and the HUDCC and we will support her with more funds once she is ready,” he said.

She had several housing agencies under her, including the National Housing Authority, that were given huge allocations.

Of the P428.6 million Robredo has for this year, only P61.1 million is for salaries, while the bulk of P357.3 million is for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE).

Some P10.2 million is for capital outlay, of which P6.8 million is for machinery and equipment, and P3.4 million for new vehicles.          

The biggest item in her MOOE allocation is “financial assistance/subsidy” amounting to P177.6 million, which some congressmen describe as a pork barrel fund and which she could use for the same purpose as her P70-million annual Priority Development Assistance Fund allocation when she was Camarines Sur congresswoman.         

Binay used a large part of that fund for medical assistance given to poor patients through government hospitals.

Robredo has P37.3 million for travel, P27.9 million for consultants, P11 million for rent, P25 million for representation expenses and P14 million for supplies and materials.

She is reportedly scheduled to travel to the United States this month on a speaking engagement. She spent the Christmas holidays in the US with her family.

She is renting the Boracay Mansion of former president Joseph Estrada in New Manila, Quezon City as her office.

The city government, which owns the mansion, is planning to purchase a nearby Estrada property for her bodyguards.

Robredo’s budget is a drop in the bucket compared to the huge P20.3-billion funding for President Duterte’s office for this year.

According to Diokno, P15.5 billion of the P20.3 billion is allocated for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ 50th anniversary, which the country is hosting.

Still, of the P15.5 billion for the ASEAN event, P11.5 billion will be used by the President’s office, P2 billion will go to the Department of the Interior and Local Government, P1.5 billion to the Presidential Communications Office (PCO), P749.6 million to the Department of Tourism and P177.7 million to the Department of Trade and Industry.

The allocations are on top of the five agencies’ own budgets for 2017.

The P1.5 billion for ASEAN-related activities for PCO is P300 million more than its P1.2-billion budget. – With Jess Diaz