The next president: VP Leni
The vice president and this writer will share the same stage as speakers in the next general membership meeting of the Employers' Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) to be attended by about 500 top executives of the country's business corporations. With the earth-shaking announcement of VP Leni's resignation, the attendees may reach a thousand or even more. I hope the venue can accommodate such an unexpected increase in attendance. VP Leni will speak about government policies affecting business. I will focus on the controversial issue of contractualization. Curiously, it is highly probable that both of us will be expressing opposition to announced government policies.
The limelight will definitely be on VP Leni. I will just be a voice in the wilderness. But I am sure that I shall find a way to say that perhaps, recent events have emerged as a providential way of telling us, that we have found our new leader in the vice president.Providence has many strange ways of making things to happen. Senator Ninoy Aquino was assassinated in 1983. It became the tipping point for his widow, a plain housewife, inexperienced, reluctant, and unprepared to rise to the apex of power. But destiny brought her there. Then her untimely demise made her son (who never planned to become president) became a viable candidate for the highest post of the land. And the rest is history.
When President Ramon F. Magsaysay died on Mt. Manunggal here in Cebu in the early fifties, a Boholano, the vice president, Carlos P. Garcia, assumed the presidency. It was not accident. It was allowed to happen by someone greater than all of us. When President Garcia, a Nacionalista, refused to appoint as member of his Cabinet, Vice President Diosdado P. Macapagal, a Liberal, it gave the vice president four years to campaign as the next presidential bet who defeated the incumbent president. It was also providential that President Erap was ousted that GMA rose to the presidency. You see, someone with great power up there allows all these to happen to save the people and deliver them from whatever worse things that could befall them.
The resignation of Vice President Leni may be the tipping point that many people have been waiting for. It was providential that the Supreme Court decided, in a split ruling of 9-5-1, to allow the burial of the remains of President Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. That caused VP Leni to issue a strong statement expressing solidarity with those who opposed the burial. And that triggered the Malacañang decision not to allow the vice president from attending all Cabinet meetings. And the most honorable option VP Leni took was to tender her irrevocable resignation. I could discern the handwritings on the wall. Someone up there is hatching something.
Now, Vice President Leni can assume her new role as the leader of the opposition. The LP stalwarts in the Senate and in the House are almost all tainted with the Napoles curse. They are not as clean as Leni. They do not have the moral authority that the vice president possesses. VP Leni is a lawyer. She is passionate. Her love of our country and people are unquestionable. Above all, she is honest, hardworking, and is well-loved by the masses. The business sector, represented by our audience on December 15, does not know her well. But what matters most is that she is clean. She is immaculate (today is Immaculate Conception Day). No, we are not going to oust a very popular President Duterte. We can wait until 2022. There is an honorable way to install President Leni Robredo. It is called elections. For sure, she is the better option than Bongbong.
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