Shades of pink

The color pink evokes memories of my high school days when we girls wore baby pink polo-cut blouse and navy blue pleated skirt for uniform. From then on, I’ve been partial for dresses and other items with pink color.

Generally, pink is thought to be a calming color associated with love, kindness, and femininity. Many people immediately associate the color with all things feminine and girly. Since this color was symbolic of tenderness and childhood innocence, pink thus is widely used in hospital and police response on emergency involving infants less than 12 months old.

On spiritual sense, pink indicates a person’s right relationship with God. In various Catholic churches, pink is used for either the Third Sunday of the Advent when priests are garbed in pink and a pink-colored candle is lit to celebrate the Sunday of Joy on the birth of Jesus every Christmas day.

In sports and yoga activities, it is believed the pink shades can help calm the mind. It emanates a form of compassion, nurturing, understanding, caring and love. However, pink uniform in sports competition is not advised because it can make an athlete look immature and feared to drain the energy.

However, a battle for the pink color between two most bitter rivals in the past elections is brewing. Both wearing pink attires as their campaign signature color, the battle for pink erupted between Vice President (VP) Leni Robredo and ex-Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. The two arch rivals filed one after the other last week their respective certificates of candidacy (COC) for the May 9, 2022 presidential elections.

They first battled in the VP race during the May, 2016 elections. Both their runningmates, ex-Sen. Mar Roxas II and the late Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, respectively, however, lost to former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in the presidential elections. Marcos, however, contested the margin of victory of Mrs. Robredo before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) which took more than five years to resolve in favor of VP Robredo.

By the unanimous ruling, the 15-man Supreme Court (SC) upheld the PET ruling early this year. However, lawyers of Marcos sought clarification of another set of mixed voting on the same PET ruling and this remains pending before the High Court. When he was featured guest in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay Zoom Webinar on Sept. 8, Marcos told us his lawyers won’t withdraw their SC petition.

Now as standard-bearer of Partido Federal but still without VP runningmate, Marcos believes his PET against VP Robredo remains active and alive – not unless though the SC rules with finality on this petition before election day next year. Or, if he gets lucky enough to get elected in next year’s presidential race and sworn into office, only then at that time his pending appeal to SC is considered withdrawn, Marcos argued. He cited the jurisprudence of the SC ruling in Santiago’s PET case against former president Fidel Ramos during the May, 1998 elections. Having not withdrawn her PET case even if Santiago filed her COC, it was subsequently deemed withdrawn when she won and took her oath in office in the May, 2001 Senate elections.

At the 11th hour of the COC filing period, VP Robredo entered herself as an “independent” candidate. VP Robredo is the recognized nominal chieftain of the Liberal Party (LP), being the second highest elected official of the land. She also, however, shed the yellow signature color of the LP, the political party that carried her into the OVP.

Ironically though, Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan – who is the LP president – became her last-minute VP runningmate. Admitting too his reluctance, Pangilinan submitted his VP bid on the ultimate day of the filing period for COCs last Friday. Likewise, he shed the LP yellow signature color and wore green T-shirt with the pink ribbon pinned on his chest. Pangilinan explained his green color seeks to highlight his priority for agriculture should he succeed in his VP quest.

Mrs. Robredo clarified later to reporters they are not trying to distance from the LP neither with the “yellow” color of their party. Robredo justified her running as “independent” candidate to signal their openness to forging alliances with different parties.

In politics, as they say, it’s always a numbers game. No sacred alliances or party loyalty, just strictly politics.

VP Robredo justified her choice of campaign color seeks to advance the emerging global symbol of pink for protest and activism. “What we are fighting now is not just the return of the dictator’s son. We are fighting bad governance that has been the cause of the problems we are facing right now,” VP Robredo pointed out.

President Duterte pejoratively calls “yellow” in Tagalog as “yelo,” or ice that has melted already in potshots at the disseminated ranks of LP and their opposition allies. Rabid pro-administration supporters call the “yellow” groups as “dilawan,” which is actually the Tagalog word for this color. The pro-Duterte groups also call them “yellow-tards,” or short form of retardates in retaliation to “Duter-tards” tag against the President’s army of trolls in social media.

The “yellow” color became a color of protest used by the anti-Marcos leaders led by the late president Corazon Aquino who, along with her loyal followers, wore yellow dresses. Mrs. Aquino intimated in a conversation with us then at Malacañang Press Corps that fuchsia – not yellow – is her favorite color. Fuchsia is a deeper shade of pink.

As far as VP Robredo is concerned, pink is important because it symbolizes those who support and trust her. “There is a saying, ‘we are defined by the choices we make.’ So this is not about colors,” she stressed.

But it was former Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Bayani Fernando who popularized the color pink. He had all roadside MMDA public toilets and overhead walkways painted in hot pink.

The only difference now is the shades of pink that VP Robredo and Marcos wear. Actually, the pink ribbon that VP Robredo wears is actually the symbol of the International Breast Cancer Awareness Month observed yearly every October.