Leni Robredo

Maria Leonor "Leni" Robredo (Tagalog: [ˈlɛnɪ ɾɔˈbrɛdɔ] ; née Gerona; born April 23, 1965) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 14th vice president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. She previously served as the representative of the 3rd district of Camarines Sur from 2013 to 2016.Robredo narrowly defeated Bongbong Marcos, the son of the ousted dictator and kleptocrat Ferdinand Marcos, in the contested 2016 vice presidential election. After an electoral protest by Bongbong Marcos, the Presidential Electoral Tribunal found no signs of fraud and her lead was slightly widened. She is the second woman to serve as vice president of the Philippines, after Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and the first vice president from the Bicol Region.Robredo has spearheaded multiple programs in the Office of the Vice President (OVP); her flagship anti-poverty program, Angat Buhay (lit.  ' Uplifting Lives ' ), has helped address key areas including education, rural development, and healthcare, in partnership with more than 300 organizations. During the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, the OVP under Robredo responded by providing free shuttle services for frontline workers, swab tests, telehealth services, and raised funds for relief operations across the country. Robredo was awarded by the government of Thailand in 2016 for her work and advocacy in women's empowerment and gender equality. Under her leadership, the OVP also received the ISO 9001: 2015 certification for the office's quality management systems.During her vice presidency, she served as the chair of the Liberal Party and de facto leader of the opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte's administration, where she was appointed by Duterte and briefly served as the chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and the co-chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs. She has received backlash from government supporters for her being staunchly critical to Duterte's policies such as the war on drugs, counter-insurgency initiatives, COVID-19 pandemic response, and soft stance toward China. She has been a constant target of disinformation, with many articles making false claims about her personal life to discredit her.Robredo announced her presidential campaign in the 2022 presidential elections with Liberal Party leader and Senator Francis Pangilinan as her running mate. However, she widely lost the election to Bongbong Marcos.