Leni Robredo, a call to serve

“I hate saying I am not running anymore because I said that so many times already and I ate my words… So, I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t anymore.

“When there is a call for you to serve, no matter how difficult, you answer the call.”

This was part of the remarks that former vice president Leni Robredo gave when she was asked if she would seek higher office again during an Asia Society forum in New York on Dec. 5, 2022.

More recently, Mayor Leni Robredo said she would no longer run for any national position during a radio interview. She even said that the country did not need a savior. This statement was met with dismay by opposition leaders and the majority of the Filipino people who were looking forward to seeing her as the standard bearer of the democratic forces in 2028.

However, in spite of her declaration, there was an overwhelming sentiment that perhaps she could still change her mind. As Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan said, “We respect her decision even as we disagree with it.”

It is also clear to most people that Mayor Leni Robredo is in the best position to form a single coalition of the opposition forces that would include the original Yellow Movement of the Cory Aquino years, the still active Pink Movement that supported her during the 2022 presidential elections and even those forces that are presently aligned with the administration.

It is critical to note that in the 2028 national elections, this country will need not only a winning presidential candidate but perhaps, even more important, somebody who can mobilize a movement at the grassroots to elect all the other officials like senators, congressmen, governors, mayors and even councilors and board members. If we are to truly have a revolutionary transformation in the political world of the Philippines, we must not only elect the right president but also the right people in all the other political positions. Only then can we really have a meaningful change in the system.

For those who are disheartened by the apparent decision of Leni Robredo, we should not be surprised and we should not give up hope.

I want to narrate a personal experience I had with Cory Aquino more or less a year before the 1986 presidential elections. I was then deputy secretary general of PDP-LABAN which was, at that time, the most active and principled opposition political party to the Marcos regime. It had been formed by a coalition of two political forces. The first one was the Pilipino Democratic Party or PDP led by Aquilino Nene Pimentel and was based mainly in the Visayas and Mindanao. The other party was the Lakas ng Bayan or LABAN originally led by the martyr Ninoy Aquino, organized in 1978.

Jaime Ferrer was the Metro Manila chairman for the PDP-LABAN. We decided to organize a meeting for the PDP-LABAN members in the Parañaque-Las Pinas area which would be held at the Tropical Palace Hotel in BF Homes. Ka Jaime Ferrer told me to go and invite Cory Aquino to be our guest speaker. She accepted and on the day of the meeting, I was asked to introduce her. So I gave a short introduction and my final words were,  the next president of the Republic of the Philippines.

After her talk, she called me aside and verbally reprimanded me. She told me never to introduce her again as the next president because she had no intention of running. Later, I told Jaime Ferrer about this and told him that maybe we should look for another candidate. He told me that Cory was the only one with the personality to mobilize and unite all the democratic forces. He added that we should never give up trying to convince her.

A few months later, Marcos declared that there would be special elections. There were other opposition candidates who were thinking of running for president, like Salvador Laurel and Jovito Salonga. In the end, through a series of persuasive actions and perhaps other factors I am not aware of, she was persuaded to run.

One of the most publicized persuasive actions was the campaign for one million signatures for Cory to run. However, this was a few months before elections, which was already on most peoples minds. At this point, two years before 2028, perhaps it is time to start such a campaign, but most people still do not have elections at the top of their minds.

I sincerely believe that there will be events that will happen in the next year that will make Leni Robredo rethink her decision. Surely, the sacrifices of two Filipino heroes, Ninoy Aquino and Jesse Robredo, should not have been in vain.