OVP ready for transition to next admin

MANILA, Philippines — The Office of Vice President Leni Robredo has expressed its readiness to work with the next administration to make the transition as smooth and orderly as possible.

Robredo’s spokesperson Barry Gutierrez said no one has reached out yet to their office regarding the transition, including the camp of presumptive vice president Sara Duterte-Carpio.

“That is only right because there is no proclamation yet,” he said in Filipino during an interview with “Sa Totoo Lang” over One PH on Thursday night.

“But definitely, the OVP as an office is ready and continues to prepare for the transition. We will work with whoever is declared as the next vice president to make the transition as smooth and as easy as possible,” he added.

Duterte-Carpio is leading by a wide margin in the partial and unofficial tally of votes in last Monday’s elections. It will be Congress that will officially declare the next president and vice president of the country.

Robredo, who ran for president, is trailing behind Duterte-Carpio’s running mate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

According to Gutierrez, it will be up to the next vice president if he or she will continue the programs initiated by Robredo, particularly her flagship anti-poverty program Angat Buhay.

“The OVP underwent a major transformation under VP Leni due to many reasons… For the majority of her time as Vice President, VP Leni has no cabinet portfolio so we had to transform the office into a working office from a purely ceremonial one,” he pointed out.

Marcos has already named Duterte-Carpio as his education chief.

“I don’t know if the next vice president would want to continue these projects that we started, but they are there. If they want to continue it, the entire program and reports — the process that we did in the past six years — are available to them,” Gutierrez said.

Robredo was scheduled to attend the thanksgiving activity at the Ateneo de Manila University last night.

While she has yet to directly acknowledge defeat, she earlier urged supporters to accept the results once they are final.

Gutierrez said they would continue to monitor the entire process, including the issues that were raised during election day.

“We are working with some experts to study some of the issues that were brought to our attention by the supporters and other people regarding this election,” he said.

“But in the end, whatever the result is, whatever the decision of our countrymen in this election, we are ready to accept it. But let us wait (for the final results),” he added.