‘Tatay Nene’ Pimentel

It has been seven years since the untimely death of former Senate president Aquilino Pimentel Jr., or “Tatay Nene,” on Oct. 20, 2019.

How time flies.

I still remember the Pimentel family asking me to speak at his wake. Anticipating a long line of speakers, I rescheduled my flight to Iloilo from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and went straight from the wake to NAIA for my departure.

Looking back, I realized at the wake that I’ve worked with Senator Pimentel for 21 years! Over that time, I went from being his consultant to becoming his “anak;” from preparing questions for interpellations to putting together campaign plans and from seeking out his favorite rhum during my travels to bringing my wife, Charito, to lunch with his family at his “senior citizens” home in Quezon City.

I worked in the Senate for more than 30 years, starting with Senate president pro tempore Teroy Laurel and ending with Senate president Nene Pimentel. In between, I worked with senators Letty Shahani, Juan Flavier, Gringo Honasan and Jun Magsaysay.

That may be why I enjoyed working in the Senate then: for young Filipinos like me, who joined soon after it was reconstituted following the fall of martial law, it was a place where the best and brightest debated the country’s real issues.

That was where debates and interpellations among senators Salonga, Laurel, Gonzales, Pimentel, Saguisag, Shahani and Enrile felt like graduate-school lectures we had to memorize.

It was a place where one could marvel at how Salonga, Pimentel and Gonzales could debate on the floor without briefing notes – and where, later, senator Turing Tolentino could deliver a more than an hour-long privilege speech and answer questions without a single piece of paper on his lectern.

Oh, how far the Senate has fallen with this current crop of politicians.

Nene Pimentel was one of my heroes during the anti-Marcos movement, but I never got the chance to speak with him or work with him in my early years in the Senate.

After studying at USC and working for the California State Legislature, I returned to teaching at UP. In 1995, I resumed political campaigning. Gwen Pimentel-Gana, a student of mine at UP NCPAG’s graduate school, encouraged me to join Nene Pimentel’s 1998 Senate comeback campaign.

I started as a legislative consultant and met like-minded leaders who became my lifelong friends – including then assistant solicitor general (now Sandiganbayan Associate Justice) Karl Miranda, former Eastern Samar governor (later Senate secretary) Lutz Barbo and, of course, our chief of staff, Atty. Gwen Gana.

Joining his office transformed my relationship with him from seeing him as an icon to seeing him as an idol and eventually as a “Tatay.”

He lived simply. When I was invited to his birthday celebration at his home in Marikina, I dressed up, only to find Senator Pimentel in slippers and casual clothes. He told me to grab a beer and join the karaoke session.

He showed me what it means to lead with principle and competence. Everything was done in accordance with the rules. Even our hiring as Senate consultants (we didn’t get paid well, by the way) required us to submit numerous documents, attend committee hearings and prepare questions for interpellation and proposed amendments.

He was a taskmaster who expected no less of his staff and consultants than he was willing to do himself. He personally led the drafting of more than 100 Omnibus Amendments to the Local Government Code. We worked on them during our secluded weekend sessions in Laguna, which ran late into the evening and resumed immediately after breakfast.

He wrote his own speeches and would call me only when he needed data. He also wrote his own book, “Martial Law in the Philippines: My Story.” How do I know? He would call me at 4 a.m., asking me to trace and verify the people he included in his memoirs. I couldn’t tell him I was in high school when these events occurred.

Despite tempting offers to switch sides while he was Senate president and later senator, he was so principled that he would often tell me, “I would rather be in the opposition, even if I am the opposition of one.”

He repeatedly told me his antidote against corruption. He said, “Do not engage in even the smallest corrupt activity, because once you start, it becomes a slippery slope you can never get out of.”

I served as his negotiator with the FPJ and Roco camps during his 2004 reelection campaign. Although he received better offers from the other camps, he ultimately chose to lead the FPJ senatorial slate. We did the impossible: we placed third while spending less than any other winning candidate.

Having lost my father before assuming leadership roles, I came to regard Senator Pimentel as my “Tatay.” I emulated him and sought his counsel at every critical juncture in my professional life – from campaigning for FPJ and serving as a spokesman in the Villar presidential campaign to becoming UP vice president for Public Affairs and, ultimately, CHED commissioner and chairman.

His guidance and life lessons have served me well in my leadership positions.

There will never be another Nene Pimentel, and I’m privileged to have worked with him and to call him my Tatay Nene.