Leni Robredo’s story of Jesse’s last call moves widows to tears

Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo with her late husband, former Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo. SCREEN GRAB FROM LENI ROBREDO’S FACEBOOK

DASMARIÑAS CITY, Philippines—Men and women packed the Animo Gymnasium of the De La Salle University here on Friday to listen to Liberal Party vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo introduce herself as one of the lesser-known candidates.

Many in the crowd were seen wiping their tears away after Robredo asked who among the women, who dominated the crowd, are widows.

Many raised their hands to which Robredo remarked in jest: There were a lot of maidens in Cavite.

Then she said, “I think you remember the time you lost [your husbands].”

It was not the first time Robredo publicly talked about her husband’s death. Her life story was recently featured in an episode of “Maalaala Mo Kaya,” a popular television drama.

Final moments

Robredo recalled the final moments she had with her late husband and former Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, who died in a plane crash in 2012.

Leni also looked back to the time when she helped raised her family in Naga City while working as a lawyer and a worker for a nongovernment organization at the same time.

Life was simple even after Jesse, a former mayor of Naga City, was appointed to President Aquino’s cabinet in 2010. Even though he had to stay more often in Metro Manila, Robredo said her husband would not miss a chance to come home to Naga to be with them.

“All those Saturdays and Sundays, (Jesse) came home to us, except on Aug. 18, 2012. That was the very first Saturday that he could not come home because he had to represent the President [in a function] in Cebu,” Robredo said.

She said Jesse was not happy to miss their youngest daughter’s swimming competition that day.

Straight from Cebu

At 3 p.m., her husband called to tell her that he would be coming home straight from Cebu City on a private plane.

Robredo drove to the Naga airport, but she received another phone call that Jesse’s plane had to turn back to Cebu. When she got home, she called Jesse again but he told her he was attending to something and would call her back.

“Only 10 minutes had passed after I talked to him and his office in Manila was already calling to tell me that my husband’s plane crashed in Masbate [province],” Robredo said.

“I remembered that moment I was holding the phone. I felt like losing all the energy in my body as I looked at my daughter,” she said.

She and her daughter started praying the rosary “but I could not finish reciting the ‘I believe in God’ (The Apostles’ Creed).”

Robredo had repeatedly said she had never thought of joining politics until her husband’s death.

Against the odds

“I ran against the most powerful politician [in our place],” Leni said. “They would not let me use the barangay halls [during the campaign]. Of 186 villages, only 25 barangay captains supported me,” she said.

She could not even afford to rent a sound system at P7,000 a day for her campaign. “Then someone gave me a portable sound system but only about 20 [people] could hear me,” she said.

Despite the shortage of campaign funds, Robredo won as representative of Camarines Sur in 2013 against Nelly Villafuerte, a member an influential political clan in the province.

She said she hopes that the three million Bicolanos would rally behind her despite the presence of her fellow Bicolanos, Senators Francis Escudero, Gregorio Honasan and Antonio Trillanes IV, in the race.

“I think I have the upper hand, being the only one born and bred in Bicol,” she said.

Robredo said should she and running mate Mar Roxas win, she preferred no Cabinet position from Roxas, who replaced Jesse as Interior secretary.

“I told him (Roxas) I hope it would not be a Cabinet position, but a special project on antipoverty or on rural development. Because that’s where my expertise is and I think that is where they can maximize my abilities,” she said.