Jesse’s girl is the man to beat

“Sa aming mga agam-agam, tinatanong po namin ng aking mga anak kung ano kaya ang gagawin ni Jesse kung siya ang nalalagay sa ganitong pagsubok. Alam po namin agad ang kasagutan. Kahit gaano kahirap, hindi niya tatalikuran ang kahit sinumang humihingi ng tulong, hindi matututulog hanggat hindi niya pa nagagawa ang kahit anumang magagawa niya para sa bayan. Magsasakripisyo, ibibigay ang lahat gaya ng pagbigay niya ng kanyang buhay noong siya ay naglilingkod pa para sa bayan.” Leni Robredo on why she agreed to be the Liberal Party’s VP bet, October 2015.

Early this year, former five-time Speaker of the House Jose de Venecia Jr. likened Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo to a “gentle storm” that in time “will sweep the nation” with her message of  “simplicity and truth.”

It is late April, and already, numbers are proving the astute former Speaker right.

According to the latest SWS survey first published in BusinessWorld newspaper, Leni has overtaken by a hairline Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in the vice presidential race.

Just two weeks before Election Day, the soft-spoken but strong-willed widow dashed forward by seven percentage points from the previous SWS survey to 26 percent, placing her in a tie with Marcos (25 percent).

The survey, conducted April 18 to 20 among 1,800 registered voters nationwide, had an error margin of +/-2 percent, SWS said.

It was held after the two vice presidential debates, where surveys, formal and informal, showed the former human rights lawyer impressing many.

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Leni doesn’t want people to say that she capitalized on her beloved husband Jesse Robredo’s death to win sympathy votes. According to her daughter Aika, Leni wants to be known as her own person.

And yet, you could see how much the late DILG Secretary and Ramon Magsaysay awardee had molded Leni. Leni, who became Jesse’s bride when she was only 21, said that her husband of 25 years, “was able to marry power and principle. He survived politics without its trappings. Even after more than two decades in power, he continued to live a simple and modest life.”

From Jesse, she continued, “I learned that what we sow, we reap. Jess was a very giving person when he was alive. He genuinely cared for people, especially the poor. He worked very hard without expecting anything in return.”

You could see that Jesse’s girl is trying very hard not to fail him.

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Last Sunday, as the presidential debate in Pangasinan was heating up, the grandchildren of the late former President Cory Aquino, namely Jonty Cruz and Nina Abellada, hosted a fund-raising dinner for Leni. The vice presidential candidate was by her standard bearer Mar Roxas’ side in Pangasinan, so her daughters Aika, Tricia and Jillian represented her at the dinner at the Cojuangco ancestral home in Forbes Park. Sumptuous Filipino fare from Sarsa chef JP Anglo was served.

Asked her reaction to the latest SWS survey showing Leni ahead of her rivals, Pinky Aquino Abellada said yesterday, “People now realize that she is a true public servant.”

I’ve written before that Viel Aquino Dee once christened Leni “Cory Part 2.”

As early as February, the eldest Aquino sibling Ballsy Cruz told me, “Both Mom and Leni believed that when the time came to do something for the country, they could not look at themselves in the mirror if they turned their backs on that chance to serve.

“Pareho sila na kung hindi ikaw ang tatakbo ay marami pang iba ang tatakbo. Eh paano naman natin matatanggal ang matagal na nakaluklok sa puwesto? Siguro she also felt na kesa pagsisihan ko ‘to kung kinakailangan nga ng panahon, sasabak na ako. Both Mom and Leni, once they’ve committed to a cause, they’re going to give it their all. Once napasukan, talagang all out.”

From three percent when her name was included by the SWS for the first time in August 2015, Leni tied for second place with Marcos in the SWS poll conducted in December 2015.

And now, she’s No. 1. On May 9, we’ll see if Jesse’s girl is the last man standing.

Ask not…

I grew up admiring (to put it mildly) the late US President John F. Kennedy even if I just knew him from history books and biographies and my mother Sonia’s treasure trove of Life magazines.

And yet today, his clarion call “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” resonates, yes, all the way across the ocean, over 50 years after his presidency.

You get the government you deserve because you vote for the leader of your choice. You write his or her name in the ballot. (I don’t believe there has been large-scale fraud in Philippine elections after 1986.)

But never ever think that government has the magic pill or the silver bullet to your problems — that if you cheat on your taxes or have more children than you can afford, that government is to blame for your misery. Government isn’t your whipping boy when things don’t work out because no one follows traffic rules and triggers a jam (like the jeepney that unloads passengers at an intersection); or when, as my sister Geraldine pointed out, one refuses to car pool so that three cars (or more) from one household are out on the street at the same time, with only one passenger each, contributing to the gridlock. And government gets all the rocks. It’s a democracy after all.

Make yourself count. Stop bellyaching when you can be part of the solution.

A pillar of the newspaper world said it best. “I am praying that our country will get the President we need, not the one we deserve.”

After May 9, and if we get the President we deserve but don’t need, this will be said of us: “Serves them right!”

Ouch.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)