Grace on Decision Day: ‘Compassion, not ego’

Sen. Grace Poe is expected to announce soon whether or not she will seek the presidency in 2016.

It is a decision awaited by many — not just by other presidential or vice presidential aspirants. It is a decision that will be hailed and derided at the same time; discussed ad infinitum and analyzed to the bone. It is a decision that will change not only Grace’s life but also those of tens of millions others.

To be or not to be? That, to quote Shakespeare, is the question.

I asked Grace yesterday what her prayer is as she goes through the gauntlet of the pros and cons of seeking the highest post in the land, and she said, “I pray for wisdom and courage.”

No stranger to politics and the strengths and weaknesses of the Filipino people, the problems besetting the country and the pride and the glory accorded to any human being elected President, she added, “I ask that I be guided not by ego but by compassion.”

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The presidency is really destiny.

Grace, now 47, almost didn’t pursue her candidacy in the 2013 senatorial elections because a survey firm put her at No. 28. This was three weeks after she filed her candidacy and only 12 seats were up for the taking in the Senate.

Grace was so distraught she asked God for a sign that would tell her if she should continue on with the race.

“I went to Quiapo Church one night because I was really upset. I was half praying, half crying. I asked God, should I push through with this? Perhaps I should already call it quits because I didn’t want to waste the capital that my dad (the late Fernando Poe Jr. or FPJ) gave me, my dad, who was larger than life. If I lose in this election, people will really say, ‘See FPJ really lost in 2004’,” Grace recalled to me after she topped the senatorial elections in 2013.

According to her, after praying for some time inside the church, she rose from the pew — her mind almost made up.

“It was late at night but there were still a lot of people. On my way out of the church,  this guy stopped me,  a total stranger. ‘Ituloy mo, ha (Please do not quit),’ he told me. I cried, because that to me was the answer to my prayer. And the answer came right away.”

Still, Grace said she needed to validate that one man’s plea —  that it was truly a sign from Above.

“Paniniwalaan ko ba ‘to?” she asked herself.  “So I walked back inside the church. I wanted to go to the holy water font. I went to the back. The janitor was cleaning. ‘Ituloy mo naman, o. Kasi binoto namin si FPJ,’ he told me. That same night!”

Two pleas for her to finish the race and keep the faith. Grace heard the answer to her prayer, and it was loud and clear.

“You know, I went back to Quiapo Church so many times after that. And no one approached me anymore with that message. Only that one night.”

She didn’t quit the race. She topped it and made history.

In elections that were widely touted as fair and accurate, Grace garnered the most number of votes ever obtained by a senatorial candidate, not just a female senatorial candidate. With 20,331,327 votes, she bested Sen. Bong Revilla’s record of 19,513,521 votes in 2010.

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It isn’t unlikely that Grace will also look for a sign from Above — from her Father and her father — before she crosses the Rubicon. Perhaps, she already has found the sign, and is just waiting for a validation that her decision, just like in 2013, will be the right one.

Grace said her topping the senatorial race was not just vindication for her father, it was an affirmation of his victory in the 2004 presidential polls and his presence in the 2013 race.

“It took nine years. We seek justice but we don’t know how and when it will be given to us,” Grace told me once. “I remember this short story I read by Leo Tolstoy, ‘God sees the truth but waits’.”

It might well be the case with the citizenship issue hounding her. God sees the truth but waits.

* * *

I looked at my notes and re-read an interview when Grace affirmed that she was coming back to the Philippines for good.

After FPJ’s death in 2004, Grace was more convinced than ever that she should raise her family in the Philippines.

“It was really my dad’s death that prompted us to come back. You know, life is short and then after seeing millions of people sympathizing with us, I started thinking, ‘What are we doing in the States? This is where we belong.’ And if my dad, in the last days of his life, was dedicated towards probably fulfilling his dream of making the lives of his countrymen better, we should do no less. If only my dad saw the people at his wake — who repaid him in a way that we didn’t really expect...”

The outpouring of grief and support at FPJ’s wake and funeral made Grace and her husband Neil Llamanzares realize that, “This is where our children should have their roots. That’s the legacy that they have.”

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So to be, or not to be, Grace?

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