Young lawyer out to shake up Rizal politics

Juan Fidel Nograles -CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

SAN MATEO, Rizal — Coming from a family of lawyers that excels in private practice, Juan Fidel Nograles made a choice that came as a pleasant surprise to the household.

It will be a baptism of fire, so to speak, for the 32-year-old Nograles, a once bookish and quiet boy now running for congressman in the second district of Rizal province, and challenging a clan that has dominated local politics for more than two decades.

On Saturday, the Harvard graduate was taking a break from his meetings and house-to-house campaign here when his mother Sol caught up with him at a café.

“Umitim ka (your skin seemed darker),” Sol, a labor lawyer, told her “Ayan” (a nickname derived from “bayan,” or country, which Fidel’s parents chose for their son to accentuate his being born in 1986, the year of the Edsa People Power Revolution).

‘Just a phase’

“When he told us he’s running, his [elder] sister said, ‘Let him be; it’s just a phase.’ But it wasn’t — and so here we are,” Sol told the Inquirer.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 2016, Nograles served as assistant provincial administrator of Rizal. The bachelor has since moved out and lived in Rodriguez (the town formerly called Montalban) where he started offering free legal services to indigent villagers dealing with “simple” cases stemming from marital disputes or unpaid debts.

“The barangays are the front line of the justice system. When one has a legal [problem], he doesn’t go to the mayor or the governor but to the village [officials],” Nograles said, recalling how his grassroots work gave him the chance to directly witness his pro bono clients’ hardships.

If elected to Congress, he said, he would work to strengthen the barangay justice system.

On the local front, Nograles said he would also push for the creation of a new congressional district in Rizal, by splitting the second district currently composed of Baras, Cardona, Jalajala, Morong, Pililla, Rodriguez, San Mateo, Tanay and Teresa. This would allow residents to have more access to public funding and government services, he said.

Before entering politics, Nograles turned down a job offer from the World Bank and from local law firms, believing he could do more “outside an office.”

Lower-paying job

Nograles also took a leave from teaching law in several universities for a lower-paying job in the provincial capitol. “Money is not important to me. I just really want to help,” said the man fondly called “Attorney Fidel” in the barangays, where residents would often grab a chance to take a selfie with the tall mestizo.

People would often mistake him for the actor and former Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, that “they’d ask me if Lani (Revilla’s politician wife) was around. I’d tell them, ‘I’m sorry but I’m not Bong.’”

But now, such mirthful first encounters are proving to be helpful to his campaign, allowing Nograles to introduce himself and his advocacy to voters in a disarming note.

A nephew of former Speaker Prospero Nograles, whose clan is mounting its own political campaign in Mindanao, Fidel is facing the longtime “Goliaths” in Rizal, referring to the Rodriguezes. For the House seat, he is pitted against Maridee Rodriguez, whose husband, Isidro Jr., is the outgoing congressman.

“I don’t want people to vote for me because of my name, anyway,” Nograles said. “I want them to vote for me because they believe in me.”