Roxas on Jesse Robredo: He showed us how to lead

By: Thelma Sioson San Juan - 9 years ago

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Three years after former Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo died in a plane crash, Mar Roxas still turns emotional recalling his sudden death. His eyes tear up—ironically, the same eyes that people say are aloof and can hardly connect to people.

“Really a sad day,” Roxas recalls that Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012. “I was having a late barbecue lunch at Cue when I got word that Jesse’s plane was missing after it took off from Cebu. So I called Bodet (Manila International Airport Authority general manager Jose Angel Honrado) to find out more.”

Honrado confirmed that the authorities were indeed trying to track down the plane taking Robredo from Cebu to Naga, his home and where he served as mayor for six nonconsecutive terms. That Saturday Robredo was flying home for the weekend to be with his wife, Leni, and three daughters, more specifically to make it to his daughter’s swimming competition.

The Piper Seneca plane went missing shortly after it took off Saturday morning from Mactan International Airport in Cebu. On it were Robredo, his aide and two pilots.

“I broke the news to the President. He was stunned,” recalls Roxas. “The President decided we fly the next morning to Masbate, the missing plane’s flight path and the closest point between Naga and Cebu, as the search and rescue operations began.

“That night, the President called to say that instead of 11, we’d fly at six in the morning and join the first wave (of the Presidential Security Group that precedes the presidential party on every trip).” This denoted the urgency of the moment.

“Then the technical divers and the equipment were flown to Masbate.”

Searching high and low

Beginning that Sunday, Aug. 19, the President and Roxas, then transport secretary, stayed to oversee the search and rescue mission in the waters off Masbate. Mr. Aquino, however, had to fly back to Manila before Wednesday for the Aug. 21 commemoration of the death anniversary of his father, the political martyr Benigno Aquino Jr.

“Then we got news from the diver that they had found the wreck and he took photos,” Roxas says. “The (retrieval) dive was planned for the next morning, entailing more people and equipment.

“On the dive the next morning, the diver wrote on the slate (sent up to the surface) that he had found the body wearing the clothes described to him. It was most likely Jesse. At that point a route was organized, where the body would be retrieved and brought to a small boat in the part of the ocean away from the crowd and the glare of media (that had gathered for the search operations). The plan was to bring the body straight to the mortuary.”

Retrieval behind the scene

In the small boat, apart from the retrieval team, was a slight woman, Eli Antonino of the political Antonino clan, who is a diver and good friend of Roxas and Robredo. Hers was a discreet but critical presence. “She would identify the body and ascertain it was Jesse,” Roxas says. (Ironically, Antonino wasn’t even used to looking at the dead. That was a first for her.)

“She did identify Jesse, and I had to call the President for the news, and then Leni (the widow).”

How did he break it to her? “Sorry, Leni, it’s confirmed. Jesse is gone.” Then he advised her that the President would be calling that moment.

Robredo’s body was found

Aug. 21, and shortly after, those of the pilot Jessup Balinting and copilot, Nepalese Kshitiz Chand. The other passenger, Jun Abrasado, Robredo’s aide, survived and was rescued by fishermen shortly after the crash.

Sweeping the street

The crash sent the country into mourning for the man who hardly called attention to himself, and whose brand of politics and governance—indeed whose political and social philosophy—went against the traditional political structures.

Robredo stirred the political landscape and caught the imagination of the idealists among us, when as a mayor, he showed what it was like for a non-trapo (traditional politician) to lead. His transparent, accessible governance—anchored on progressive, albeit unconventional, policies—was dubbed as tsinelas leadership; the image of him, in tsinelas (flip-flops), sweeping the street on some mornings became indelible in the minds not only of his constituents but also of the public at large.

His six nonconsecutive terms as mayor of Naga City in Camarines Sur, beginning in 1988, won him the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service in 2000. He was the first Filipino mayor to receive this award.

An industrial management engineering and mechanical engineering graduate of De La Salle University, he also worked for a master’s degree in public administration degree from John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

It was with these credentials that he was appointed secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) by President Aquino in 2010.

“With Jesse, what you saw was what you got. He was a sincere guy, truly devoted to helping his people out of poverty and to fighting the traditional political structure,” Roxas recalls an esteemed colleague.

Trust and transparency

He and Robredo had known each other for about 20 years, Robredo in his capacity as mayor, and Roxas, in various terms and capacities, in Congress and as member of the Cabinet, in the Estrada and Arroyo administrations.

“He was an extraordinary guy,” he adds.

How did Robredo conduct his “tsinelas leadership”?

“To begin with, he himself was no trapo. He was sincere in having the people as his true bosses. He walked the talk.

“The images on my mind were his actual consultations with the people. Not pakitang tao (not for show). He engaged them … even in real debate. And these were not only the formal structures, like the mayors, but people organizations, NGOs (nongovernment organizations). He was a real believer in the strength of his mandate, when he ran against the Villafuerte dynasty, the entrenched political dynasty.

“He wasn’t part of the old system. And his consultative approach indeed led to stable policies and programs, not the type that were good only as long as he lasted.”

Good governance seal

Roxas singles out the seal of good governance that Robredo started among the local governments. He has seen how this seal of good housekeeping established a mode of conduct for local governments.

“He got the President to approve the performance challenge fund, the reward for the seal of good housekeeping.” The fund consisted of P3 million for the city, P1 million for the municipality, P7 million for the province.

With the fund, the local governments could choose the projects themselves, not the national government. The seal of good governance formulated by Robredo involved primarily, according to Roxas, “financial transactions—transparency, budgets, in biddings, no adverse COA (Commission on Audit) findings.”

When his turn in the DILG came, he expanded its coverage to include, apart from the financial area, he says, “disaster preparedness, business-friendliness or cutting the red tape, social protection such as healthcare and provisions for the persons with disabilities and the elderly.”

It’s apparent how the late Robredo continues to hold a special place in the heart of Roxas, the man endorsed by Mr. Aquino for the 2016 presidential election.

“Jesse was among the first to believe in me. That was when I was running for the Senate,” Roxas says. Robredo helped him campaign in Bicol.

“But to be clear,” Roxas adds, “we were patriotic allies ahead of being personal friends. We met fighting for the same causes.”

Does he believe that a non-trapo like Robredo has made a dent on the quality of Philippine electorate?

“People today are different than in 2009. They’re more mature. How mature? We will know in 2016. It’s hard to deny how the country has moved forward. Hopefully the people will have different standards now for the presidency. They have seen, in Jesse and in the President, a leader, for the first time, na nagpapakatotoo (who is true to himself).

“Hopefully these traits of public service will serve as good benchmark—makatao (humane), open and competent.”

Touched by Jesse

Asked if he has found Robredo’s traits in his widow, Roxas doesn’t think twice: “Jesse touched our lives. He must have touched Leni’s life the most. And on her own, Leni is a formidable person—a lawyer, competent.”

He’s emphatic about a point: “In 2009, I was chasing my ambition to lead our country. Today I feel much calmer—panatag ang loob ko—because this (the presidential run) is not about me. It’s a mission to defend the daang matuwid (straight path) that the President has started. Daang Matuwid is no mere slogan, it’s what we’ve worked for the past five years. It’s the principles of governance.”

He claims that he really wasn’t sure of the President’s endorsement of him as the Liberal Party presidential candidate until a few days before the proclamation at Club Filipino on July 31.

“He called me to his office,” Roxas recalls his meeting with Mr. Aquino. “With him were his speech writers. He was dictating the points to them, of what he would say that Friday. It was halfway into the meeting that I felt it was that. I asked him, ‘So Mr. President, can I already make the reservation for the Club?’ He said, ‘yes.’ I felt truly honored yet humbled.”