Simply Jesse: The power of simplicity

MANILA, Philippines - So far, two books on the life and times of Jesse Manalastas Robredo had been published. The first one, Jess Robredo: Proud Nagueño Memories (Anvil 2012), came out just a few months after his death. The other one, Simply Jesse: The Story of Jesse Robredo, was launched by Summit Media early this year. Both books somehow managed to capture the essence of the man who became larger than life after perishing in a fatal plane crash off the waters of Masbate exactly a year ago.

Although Proud Nagueño Memories, edited by Dr. Paz Verdades Santos and Judge Soliman Santos, presents a collective recollection of the people from the city of Jesse’s birth, Simply Jesse (actually a children’s book) hews closely, in form and substance, to the attribute associated with the former mayor of Naga City and Secretary of the Interior and Local Government: simplicity.

With the book (written by Yvette Fernandez) taking the point of view or the narrative voice of the former Secretary’s 13–year-old daughter Jillian (not unlike Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird), it further reinforces the idea of simplicity, its narrative gliding like the ubiquitous bird in the illustrations (superbly executed by Nicole Lim) accompanying the texts. Thus, what scores of newspaper and magazine articles failed to achieve with their lengthy perorations on Jesse, the book does so in a paragraph or two.

Consider the following: “Papa was a mayor who worked by example. He was a Nagueño just like everyone else. He believed that every Nagueño must do his or her own part in helping make the city a better one. Papa wanted Naga to be a very clean city, so he swept the streets with the street cleaners and helped pick up trash with the garbage collectors.” Now, who can beat that for sheer simplicity?

A youthful newspaper columnist and TV producer avers that Jesse is a difficult man to write about because he is a good man, and the existence of a good man demands more from those around him. Yet, Simply Jesse succeeds in distilling the life of this “good man,” purportedly through his daughter’s eyes: “When the typhoons came, Papa went around the city to make sure everyone was safe. Afterwards, he helped clean up in his favorite T-shirt and tsinelas. During those times, many Nagueños helped so many other Nagueños. Papa believed that those who helped others, even in the smallest way, are heroes. Papa is my hero.”

I first met the Sec (that was the way I addressed him right after President Aquino appointed him as Secretary of the Interior and Local Government) in 1986. Politicized by the events in the aftermath of the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983 and heeding the call of President Cory for young professionals to join the government, the Sec, at the time, opted to get out of his well-paying job in a multi-national food conglomerate and try his hand in running a regional government agency, the Bicol River Basin Development Program (BRBDP).

A mutual friend, former Camarines Sur Board Member Ernesto G. Verdadero, arranged for me a one-on-one interview with the Sec in the office of the latter’s elder brother Butch. The interview lasted for almost an hour. Fortunately, after a couple of days, the feature article based on the interview was published by a national paper. The Sec called me up and offered me the position of public information officer at the BRBDP. That was the beginning of our decades-long collaboration.

There was something about the Sec that made me immediately feel at ease but at the same time take cognizance of his innate power to command respect — and even awe. He treated me like a long-lost pal although I hadn’t met him before that interview. And prior to my BRBDP stint, I had been drifting from one government entity to another, unable to find my mark or niche. But in the case of the Sec, I was sure that the working relationship would last for long.

At the BRDBP, the Sec used the so-called New Public Management Principles (he graduated at the top of his MBA class at UP Diliman) to give the moribund agency a new lease on life. His leadership style, aggressive yet populist, gradually earned the respect and admiration of the jaded BRBDP employees. It also attracted the best and the brightest, including a pretty and intelligent lass from the UP School of Economics named Maria Leonor Gerona (“Leni”). The 21-year-old Leni would soon catch the fancy of the 28-year-old bachelor — a perfect match, it turned out. (Did you know that Leni reported for work at the BRDBP on Aug. 18, 1986? And Aug. 18 was also the date when Sec figured in that fatal plane crash.)

For all the years we had spent together at the BRBDP and later on, at the City Hall of Naga, however, I still can’t write a definitive story of the Sec. I just don’t know how. It’s as simple as that.

This is why I find Simply Jesse quite interesting, compelling and, to a certain extent, intriguing. It holds back all the underlying emotions, including the indescribable pain of losing one’s anchor and compass, so to speak. The narrative, neat and compact, belies the turmoil from within and proceeds with just a hint of the grief and angst that gripped the entire nation for weeks after the crash. Jillian, the narrator, puts it quite simply: “But one Saturday, Mama and I waited for him to come home and he never did… So many people around the Philippines prayed very hard that Papa would be found alive. But he wasn’t. Papa’s body was found three days later.”

Her concluding lines sound almost like an epitaph on behalf of the Filipino nation: “Papa, we are so, so sad that you are no longer with us. But we are also happy and proud that you have made a difference in so many people’s lives.”

THIS WEEK’S WINNER

Gabriel Hidalgo Bordada was the vice mayor of Naga City for three consecutive terms. He was the vice mayor of the now revered Jesse M. Robredo from 2004-2010. An avid reader of non-fiction books, he currently heads Libro Para sa Futuro (Books for the Future), a program aimed at promoting reading as a tool for self-improvement.