A personal insight on Jesse M. Robredo

In the avalanche of grief-cum-tributes expressed via the traditional and new media over the tragic death of DILG Secretary Jesse M. Robredo last Saturday, someone posted a photograph on Facebook highlighting Jesse, me beside him, amidst a throng of men scrambling to get near the carriage bearing the image of the Virgin of Penafrancia. 

Below the photograph was this message: “Dios Mabalos (Thank you) Jesse Robredo! Your inspiration, advocacies & drive will forever remain.”

My being in that picture was incidental. Jesse had invited me, in September 2009, to witness and join the annual Penafrancia festival in Naga — the city that he, as six-term mayor, had transformed from decrepitude in 1988 to a thriving source of pride for his people.

Much has been written and spoken the past week about Jesse, both as a public servant and as a person of great achievements — all acknowledged and honored locally, nationally, and internationally.  

But most outstanding, I believe, are two of his qualities: 

1) Jesse’s uncommon, unquestionable humility, which he consistently demonstrated in public and private interfacing with people; and

2) His boundless drive to pursue the goals he set for himself and fulfill his commitments, no matter the hazards, obstacles and frustrations he encountered along the way.

He had political will.

That visit to Naga for the Penafrancia festival provided me the opportunity to closely observe and deeply appreciate how confidently and comfortably Jesse dealt with his constituents, and how unabashedly and elatedly they reciprocated his warm handshaking and waving, his jolly greetings and bantering. 

Clad in white t-shirt, black shorts and rubber sandals, Jesse was standing near the churchyard gate at 8 a.m. when I arrived. He was greeting the people going to church, inviting everyone to partake of the steaming goto (rice-and-meat porridge), served in disposable cups at a sidewalk stand, that traditionally he had ordered cooked for such occasion. 

He handed me a cup of the gruel, and took one for himself. It tasted good.

In early afternoon, Jesse brought me to a relative’s house for merienda of coffee and rice cakes. Barangay officials joined us. After the glad-handing they assured me I could walk freely in the city’s streets with absolute safety.

Then it was time to go to the Archbishop’s Palace where the image of the Virgin of Penafrancia would be taken out for the street procession and fluvial parade. As we walked towards the church, Jesse kept on introducing me to the people we met or passed by.

At the churchyard, we joined the crowd of devotees waiting to pull the carriage with a long rope. Jesse instructed his aides to protect me from getting crushed once the men jostled to get hold of the rope. The still shot of that moment was posted on Facebook.

Oh yes, I had prior and succeeding interactions with Jesse, all memorably satisfying. 

The first was when I campaigned nationwide for my party, Bayan Muna, in the congressional party-list elections of 2001. I met with Jesse, in his favorite casual garb, because he had decided to run for mayor again after returning from graduate studies at Harvard. 

After I briefed him on my party’s program and call for “politics of change,” Jesse readily agreed to help. In turn I assured him that our organizations in Naga would support him. 

We both won big. We did again in the next two elections. But whereas my party had to contend with bigger challenges, Jesse easily swept to victory with his chosen candidates for the city council.

When Jesse became DILG secretary and I (no longer in Congress) headed the coalition of progressive party-list organizations, we had occasions to interact again to work out solutions for certain problems, big or small, but important and urgent.

Uncomfortable with the perks of power, Jesse stayed easily accessible. He always responded to calls or texts, even thanking me for bringing up problems to him, on which he positively acted promptly.

That can’t be said of most high Executive officials.

One big issue our party-list coalition took up with Jesse was the threat to demolish urban poor communities in several areas in Metro Manila. He headed an inter-agency task force mandated to study and recommend solutions for the burgeoning problems of urban-poor settlements. The study covered what were tagged as “danger areas” (along riverbanks, creeks, railways, low-lying areas) and wide swaths of crowded communities scheduled for demolition to give way to “land development” and urban-renewal projects.

Jesse bent a sympathetic ear to the plight of the urban poor. He backed their petition for a moratorium on demolitions — against the stand of other key officials — and for good reason. The task force study disclosed that the state agencies assigned to develop relocation sites dismally fell short of targets.

The deficits were huge in terms of housing-construction backlog, lack of basic utilities (electricity and water) and, most crucial, lack of job and livelihood opportunities in the relocation areas.

Jesse endeavored to do what he had done in Naga: build better housing for the teeming poor within the metropolis. But he couldn’t have done it — alone.

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