[Trending Now] Vice President Leni Robredo requested for a lower budget for her office next year to lessen expenses on travelling.

For year 2017, the Office of the Vice President asked for a P428.367 million budget, an amount lower by 14.48% as compared to the approved working budget for this year. 

The reason for this budget proposal is to lessen the travel expenses of their office. The Vice President made it clear that she will then travel only with a lean staff and that there is no room for checking in on fancy hotels.

On the previous Senate budget hearing, Senator Loren Legarda, Head of Committee on Finance, questioned Robredo of her slashed allocation for travel, if it will limit her visiting local areas to support its office’s advocacies. 

“Not really, Madam chair. We’ve agreed already that when I travel on provincial trips, we’d be travelling with a very lean staff,” Robredo answered, quoted by Inquirer.

The Vice President assured that the office will be frugal once travelling. She instructed her staff to book them on not the best hotels, but just the clean ones would be fine. This tactic will also add up to the 38% decrease on their budget.

If we recall, in the time of last term’s Vice President Jejomar Binay, the budget leased to his office was P500,000/month. 

“Now, we’re paying at least P200,000 a month when we transferred from the Coconut Palace to the Quezon City Reception House so that we would take out a big chunk from our budget,” she said.

The Office of the Vice President’s requested budget is obviously leaner than her predecessor and Filipinos await how this will affect her term’s outcomes.

Source: TNP , Inquirer