Vice President Leni Robredo addresses the nation and gives additional recommendations to fortify the government’s COVID-19 Response on September 28, 2020.

She has laid out four recommendations to aid the government’s effort in curbing the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

First, she asked the national government to set clear and measurable goals for their response efforts. She added that the government should update the public on the progress of achieving the said goals. Through this, the public will have a sense of comfort and direction as to where the country is in the situation

She then asked for additional support for the Local Government Unit’s (LGUs) efforts in contact tracing and economic relief efforts in their respective areas. She lauded the efforts of some of the LGUs in implementing creative and effective solutions in combatting the effects of the pandemic.

Third, she asked the national government to provide a wider-scale assistance to MSMEs in the country. Aside from the available loans provided by the Bayanihan Act 2, businesses must be given direct grants in order to continue their operations and for their employees to receive wages even in the midst of a pandemic and find ways to make these grants accessible to small and struggling businesses. 

Lastly, she proposed to provide unemployed Filipinos jobs due to the pandemic. She asked the government to sort unemployed Filipinos by their socioeconomic status and prioritize those in the lower spectrum. 

The Office of the Vice President has launched Sikap.ph to provide jobs for the unemployed and iskaparate.com to give small business owners an online platform to sell their products. 

“Halos 14,000 job vacancies ang nakapost sa aming site na Sikap.ph; marami dito ang puwedeng-pwede sa mga hindi umabot ng college” she added.

Some of these recommendations have already been made and are consistently taken care of by the response team of VP Robredo.

There has been an ongoing distribution of locally made PPE sets which were locally made by dressmakers. The existence of the Community Mart app was also a big help in times like this for consumers, vendors, and tricycle drivers.

Another project is Bayanihan e-skwela which features how-to videos for teachers and parents with the help of education experts and volunteers. In line with this is the newly launched teacher training for both online teaching and modular distance learning.

VP Robredo ended her speech saying that the office of the Vice President will always be open, with no other desire but to help and to attend to the Filipino’s concerns. “Magtatagumpay tayo sa hamon na ito,” she quoted.

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By Regina Vendivil, Gian Angnged, Jermaine Ocampo