Congratulations! Mrs. PH VP Leni Robredo

By: Bob Boyer

 

“I’m watching the oath-taking of Vice President-elect Leni Robredo and my heart is filled with pride and joy. I am teary-eyed while clapping before the television! I am so happy for the Filipinos! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! Mabuhay tayong lahat!”

So wrote Beng, a close friend of mine in Manila, on her Facebook page on the morning of June 29, 2016. She was watching the inauguration of Leni Robredo. Mrs. Robredo had been elected the 14th Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines on May 9. It was a pretty remarkable achievement for her for a number of reasons. Many of the people attending the inauguration and the larger reception for 3,000 of her supporters that evening sported T-Shirts that proudly proclaimed, “From 1 Percent to Vice President” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 2, 2016). She started the race solidly in last place among the six candidates, with just one-percent of the people favoring her. Her come-from-behind victory nosed out Ferdinand (“Bongbong”) Marcos, Jr., who had been the front-runner. Marcos had greater name recognition (named after his father, the late dictator of the Philippines), had spent more time in the public eye, and had been favored by Rodrigo (“Rody”) Duterte, who won the presidency by a landslide. Despite the odds, Robredo beat Marcos in the home stretch by a narrow 263, 473 votes. Of course, in the electoral system in the Philippines, president and vice president run their own separate races and can even be of different parties.

Which brings me back to my opening paragraph and the tearyeyed joy of my friend Beng, clapping at the TV coverage of the oath-taking by Mrs. Robredo. I knew as soon as I saw Beng’s message on Facebook that the long-shot and distinctly moderate candidate (Liberal Party) that I had read about a few weeks earlier had won. I was greatly relieved, as I suspect were many Filipinos. Rody Duterte sounded to me like another blustery bully akin to Donald Trump, possibly even more outrageous. Leni, I guessed, would be a check on him, but I needed more information. I asked my friend Jose (“Butch”) Dalisay, Jr. for his take on Leni. Butch is probably my oldest Filipino friend and mentor, a journalist and UP-Diliman English Professor. He is the husband of Beng, my other best Filipino friend and source. I quote now from Butch.

“She’s seen by many as the silver lining on the dark cloud creeping over the Philippines and our democracy . . . . Leni for many was the sober choice and a safeguard (albeit a symbolic one) against the excesses we might expect of a Duterte presidency.” Butch sees the Philippine system of president and vice-president running separately as both “a surefire prescription for fractiousness, but also a kind of insurance policy.” He sees Leni as providing the insurance. He goes on to note “people have very positive impressions of Leni” and that “many who voted for Duterte voted for Robredo as well.” Butch sees her early rise in politics as due in part to the widespread popularity of her husband Jesse who was “known for his incorruptibility and dedication to public service.” Now, however, “she has firmly established herself as a leader to be reckoned with—decent, intelligent, simple in her ways, but no pushover.”

The only part of Butch’s assessment that I might cavil with is attributing Leni’s early rise too much to her being the widow of a popular and incorruptible husband. As I learned from the “Philippine Daily Inquirer” and from “Wikipedia,” Leni had for some years established herself as a political activist and human rights lawyer, at least locally in Carmines Sur. She easily won election from there to the Philippine House of Representatives after Jesse’s death in 2013. OK, full disclosure: Butch is the one who gave me the Wikipedia link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leni_Robredo). It’s impressive. Go there.

Also, do watch Mrs. Robredo’s inauguration speech on the audio link provided by the “Philippine Daily Inquirer” (Inquirer.net) for June 30, 2016. Leni is very impressive, even for those like me who don’t have much Filipino. As Butch said, “decent, intelligent, simple in her ways, but no pushover.” Contact Bob Boyer at Robert.boyer@snc.edu or his blog.