[Newspoint] Conscript of destiny

On April 10, I sent Vice President Leni Robredo a letter. Now that the feeling it revealed has exploded into a public clamor, publicizing my letter can no longer be improper – it will make me merely one of the many who have come out to be counted.

But I also intend to make points further to those I made in the letter, making its publication here useful for perspective. So here goes: 

Dear Ms. Vice President,

I write you in desperation, such a state as doubtless many of our countrymen themselves have been brought to. I don’t think you need to be told why.

I know that, soon enough after knowing you, I had become convinced that you only had the best hopes for this country in your heart, and possessed that special quality of leadership necessary for the realization of those hopes. I also remember that, having become so convinced, I told you that, even as our nation had fallen into the hands of such a malevolent regime as we had not seen since the years of Ferdinand Marcos, I trusted that you would know by yourself what to do and would well be left alone.

It might seem as if I were being precisely that sort of nuisance now. Please forgive me; as I’ve said, I feel desperate. I’ve observed you calling out the regime more often and sharply lately, as it only deserves, and I feel both gratified and emboldened every time you do so. But I wonder how things will be, never mind for my departing generation but for the next – of which in the three that immediately follow us, my wife, Chit, and I happen to have progeny; I wonder how things will be when your callouts continue to fall on deaf ears.

I guess, the peaceable, democratically cultured citizen that I am, I can only look to the presidential vote in 2022 for any prospect of redemption, but would only feel truly proud in my heart and, in that righteous sense, content enough that I could simply cast my vote for you.

But again I must confess that, leaving me unsure that you intend to run, in spite of what seems to me a providential mandate, I can’t help feeling extremely anxious at this rather late hour. Oh, what I’d give to know!

I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to send you a letter so personal as this one if I thought the desperation and anxiety it would pour out on you were feelings I alone bore: I have no doubt they are an epidemic!

You have, of course, far exceeded all expectations, despite the supreme odds you have battled. Surely the nation is grateful – but, pardon it and me, also further expectant.

My best…

She sent me an emoji in reply – three pairs of hands palms held together in prayer. I could only take it to mean she was going through a great struggle of conscience, searching for moral clarity in decision making – I can’t pretend to have even the slightest idea of the depths of her dilemma.  

Leni Robredo is a conscript of destiny. Indeed, she is compared with Corazon Aquino, herself pressed into the presidency upon her husband Ninoy’s martyrdom. A mere 11 months after the early accidental death, in 2012, of her own husband, Jesse, a man of great leadership promise, Leni took up her first electoral office, as congresswoman for her home district. From Congress, she was drafted, in 2016, for vice president, and won against all odds. 

Lawyer, economist, and social activist, Vice President Robredo has racked up an outstanding record of public service, despite being starved of budget and all in all marginalized by an administration led by a President from the opposite camp. But the essential difference between her and the President lies in that she is thoughtful, decent, considerate, and competent, and he, compulsive, coarse, self-centered, and inept, which leaves no room for wonder that this nation exists under draconian rule – corruption, false charges, arbitrary arrests and detentions, summary executions, all manner of national betrayals – and that its more sensible citizens look to Robredo for redemption.      

And here’s where people’s desperation, exploding publicly as it has done, meets Robredo’s own anxiety, and when feelings are betrayed. Unless you’re one of those hopelessly convinced otherwise, it should be easy enough to sense she is a reluctant redeemer. Not only has she refused to simply declare herself available for the presidential draft, she says she’s more inclined to run for a local position – as governor of her province or mayor of her city: “Mas attractive talaga sa akin ‘yung lokal…‘yung hinahanap ko kasi…engagement sa ground.”

She’s still open to all options, she maintains, but again puts a hurtful anticlimax to her statement – she’s open to all options, including the option to not run at all. That seems to me to take her from reluctant to tired. 

To those who remain sanguine, I can only offer a prayerful emoji of my own. – Rappler.com