Some years back, Christians asked themselves the question, posed whenever they were in doubt about a course of action: What would Jesus do? I think Vice President Leni Robredo should also ask herself more often, when she needs to decide on something, if what she’s about to do is something that her late husband, the well-loved Jesse, would also have done.
I’m glad Robredo finally made it back to Naga City yesterday. But her explanation that she wanted so desperately to come home after learning of the devastation caused by Typhoon “Nina,” but couldn’t, just left me cold.
Robredo ascribed to “wrong timing” her failure to be with her fellow Bicolanos in their hour of need. She said she tried to book return tickets to Manila as soon as she learned of the disaster but couldn’t get any since it was the height of the holiday season—and she had to secure passage for her three daughters and her 80-year-old mother, all of whom were traveling with her to the US, as well.
But Robredo was silent practically the entire time she was on vacation, not even mentioning the destruction caused by “Nina.” And during all that quiet time, this was all that she could come up with by way of explaining her absence?
Let’s fact-check Robredo’s statements to see if they stand up to some scrutiny. First of all, Robredo left Manila on Dec. 23, a full week after the weather bureau had announced that “Nina” would make landfall at around Christmas.
The night of Christmas Day, the typhoon entered through Catanduanes, while Robredo and her family had just made landfall of her own in the continental US.
If, as she claimed earlier, she was truly monitoring the situation, she would have learned upon her arrival that the typhoon was already ravaging the Bicol provinces, with her own hometown of Naga City and its environs being hit by powerful gusts of wind and rain. Did Robredo try to secure tickets then?
No. What we know is that Robredo went on a self-imposed vow of media silence, not even posting anything on Twitter or any other social media platform, as is her wont.
(Her spokesman in Manila, who was immediately nicknamed the hardest-working propagandist in government during the holiday season, said the Veep was asking for donations for the typhoon victims as soon as she arrived. Never mind if the Duterte administration said that the victims were going to receive all the aid they needed and that there was no need for outside assistance.)
I also find it hard to believe that a vice president, especially one on a mission of mercy and with an overweening desire to be with her people in the immediate aftermath of a severe weather disturbance, would fail to secure return tickets, if only for herself. And how hard was it for Robredo, if she really wanted to come home, to book a return flight for herself and to leave her children —who are already grown—to take care of themselves and their grandmother?
And would Jesse have done any of the things that Leni did, for which she is now justly being criticized? The late former mayor of Naga, who became famous for his common touch and his use of rubber sandals and whose untimely death catapulted Leni to her current high political post, probably never would have.
Jesse would never have left, anyway, with a typhoon coming. And even if he had, he would find a way to return.
He would not allow himself to be stranded, nor would he go into extended silent mode. And upon returning, he would not dream up excuses and incredible alibis—or even make a side trip to some fire victims in Quezon City, of all places, just to show that he actually cared.
But of course, Leni is not Jesse, any more than Noynoy is Cory or Bam is actually Ninoy. The Yellows only want you to think that way—before revealing, ultimately, that you’ve been played for fools for believing that some dead person continues to live on in a convenient obscure relative or spouse.
Thank God the Yellow necropolitics of the past seems to have abated. Perhaps, it may have even been eliminated for good, because of Leni’s efforts to destroy her deceased husband’s legacy.
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As a young reporter and later as metropolitan editor during the Cory years, I covered Manila’s Mayor Gemiliano “Mel” Lopez Jr., who died over the weekend at the age of 81. Mel Lopez, who was mayor from 1986 to 1992, was a gentleman of the old school, a proud son of Tondo who had a distinguished career as a city councilor, a Marcos-era assemblyman and finally as mayor of the nation’s capital.
Mel would go on to become head of the country’s amateur boxing association, chairman of the Philippine Sports Commission and, in his last six years, head of the state-owned Philippine National Oil Corp.’s Energy Development Corp.
I join the many fans and friends of Mel Lopez in condoling with his wife Ching, sons Alex and Manny and all his other relatives. Mel Lopez loved his city and it loved him back in return.