Video by Noy Morcoso/INQUIRER.net
DAVAO CITY—”In him we see hope for our country,” Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles has said of Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, the administration’s presidential candidate in the 2016 elections.
But Valles said this did not mean he was endorsing the Liberal Party standard-bearer, whom he described as a “very good person.”
After meeting with Mindanao mayors, Roxas went to the Archbishop’s Residence here for a courtesy call to Valles. “Mar Roxas passed by our house and as a bishop, I will pray for him and I hope everything would go well for him in the coming days,” Valles said.
Valles recalled the first time he met Roxas in person in Kidapawan City, Cotabato province. He enthusiastically told reporters in mixed Tagalog and Bisaya how their first meeting was so “familiar and intimate.”
“Let me tell you a short story. I know Mar Roxas has a name but in person, I hadn’t met him. In Kidapawan, he passed by our house, used the toilet. After that nagkita kami sa sala, sabi niya, “oh kamusta ikaw, Bishop?” then he saw may saging sa mesa and said, ‘may saging kaon sa ta (let’s eat),’” he said.
“It was so familiar and so intimate. Murag friend friend gyud ba sa balay (He was just like a friend in our house). I was caught by that scene. I saw a very friendly and warm act,” the archbishop said.
During their brief meeting where he prayed over the secretary, Valles said Roxas passed by their house without raising the topic of his candidacy.
“That’s a different story when you say vote for him or her. All I’m saying is I’m happy that a good friend has come to visit us,” he said.
After granting a short media interview, Roxas and Valles crossed the street and walked to a restaurant across from the Archbishop’s Residence to attend a multi-sectoral dialogue with members of civil society groups under Koalisyon ng mga Mamamamayan Para sa Reporma (Kompre).
There Roxas gave a speech, enjoining Kompre members to maintain their support for the continuation of the “daang matuwid (straight path),” President Benigno Aquino III’s reform program.
Roxas said the path would not be easy and would be “continuously” hard, “[but] we believe that this path is what will bring us to when our day will come.”
“Like what Bishop Valles had told me in our conversation, if the battle is not hard, we’re not pushing hard not enough. If the battle isn’t hard, maybe it’s not worth fighting for. The hardest battles are the ones that are worth fighting because we are fighting for what is good, for what is right, and for what is for the common good,” he continued.
“Let me end by saying, I’m going to give this my all. I’m gonna leave it all out there. We’re gonna fight this battle. We’re gonna win this battle, not only the Filipino is worth dying for but the Filipino is worth fighting for.” Julliane Love de Jesus/RC
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