Finally.!! Philippine Vice President, Leni Robredo, Resigns From Cabinet..

Philippine's Vice President, Leni Robredo, resigned as the chief of the government low-cost housing programme after she was barred from attending cabinet meetings on orders of President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte.“Remaining in your cabinet has become untenable,” Robredo said in her resignation letter addressed to Duterte who appointed her the chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Co-ordinating Council (HUDCC) five months ago.

Robredo disclosed that cabinet secretary Leoncio Evasco had text her on Sunday to inform her that on Duterte’s order, she would no longer be allowed to attend cabinet meetings due to “irreconcilable differences” which he did not elaborate.“This is the last straw because it makes it impossible for me to perform my duties,” Robredo said, referring to her job as the head of HUDCC, a government agency mandated to implement a low-cost housing programme for the poor.

She recalled she accepted the HUDCC post “given our shared commitment to the poor and the marginalised” but since she would henceforth be banned from cabinet meetings, she had no recourse but to resign. “I have exerted all efforts to set aside our differences, maintain working relationship and work effectively despite the constraints because the Filipino people deserve no less,” Robredo stressed. Even as a cabinet official, Robredo has been very vocal in joining rising criticisms particularly on the alarming increase in the number of those slain in the ongoing war on drugs particularly extra judicial killings blamed on vigilante groups.

On Monday, another official Patricia Licuanan, the chairman of the Commission on Higher Educations (CHED), disclosed that like Robredo she has been asked not to attend cabinet meetings.However, Licuannan said that unlike Robredo, she would not resign as the CHED chairman despite the claim of administration allies that in banning them from cabinet meetings, this meant that they were “fired” by Duterte.Former president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino appointed Licuanan as the CHED chairman to a fixed term until 2018.

But in the case of Robredo, Duterte named her to a cabinet position when she was elected vice president in the May polls by defeating former senator Fernando “Bongbong” Marcos, the only son and namesake of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.