Labor pains mark birth of opposition leader

Vice President Leni Robredo at the Meet Inquirer Multimedia forum. ARNOLD ALMACENN/PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER

The birthing of the country’s new opposition leader went through many hours—in fact, months—of difficult labor.

It took Vice President Leni Robredo almost six months to take the plunge as she attempted to fit herself into the administration team.

After all, as a duly elected official, she had a mandate to be part of the newly installed government and the responsibility to make it work.

When it was suggested that being a political outsider made her the de facto opposition leader, Robredo made it clear that she would work with President Duterte for the sake of unity, but would also be a constructive voice when needed.

“It was like she was burying her head in the sand,” staunch Robredo ally and former party-list Rep. Ibarra Gutierrez told the Inquirer.  “At some level, she knew she was headed toward that path [as opposition leader] but she was still clinging to the happy notion that it (wouldn’t be) her,” he added.

The reluctance frustrated not a few of Robredo’s followers, especially those looking for a courageous leader who could unite people critical of the President’s unconventional policies.

Even her most ardent supporters bristled in exasperation when the Vice President brushed off in a media interview the rumors linking her to a lawmaker and Mr. Duterte’s confession of ogling her knees during Cabinet meetings.

For these supporters, such instances crossed the line and Robredo should have put her foot down. Their disappointment forced the Vice President to issue a much stronger statement the following day.

Final push

But as in any birthing, one final push was needed. Ironically, it was Malacañang itself that made the push with its unexplained, unceremonious firing of Robredo as housing chief.

At the Meet Inquirer Multimedia forum on Thursday, Robredo finally referred to herself as the opposition leader whose main role was to unify the group’s “discordant” voices. There was no more hedging, no more hemming and hawing: Robredo has embraced the inevitable.

Political observers were quick to compare the Vice President with the late democracy icon, former President Cory Aquino, noting that the two widows’ fates and circumstances are similar, and so is their calm and reassuring demeanor that translates to steely resolve when warranted.

More than three decades apart, their common role to unite a fragmented opposition against an iron-fisted rule rang true as well.

Deemed acceptable

It is a “daunting” role, Robredo acknowledged at the Inquirer forum. “These are interesting times, these are difficult times,” she added.

Indeed, things have happened so fast in the last five months that hardly anyone can keep up with policy pronouncements that, as Mr. Duterte’s communication official said, should be interpreted using one’s “creative imagination.”

Duterte detractors have also described the strange shift in norms under the new administration that had authoritarian President Ferdinand Marcos given a hero’s burial, the capital punishment restored if lawmakers had their way and the summary killings of some 4,000 alleged drug users deemed acceptable.

The Vice President had been very vocal against the Marcos burial and the extrajudicial killings, a contrary stand described by a Duterte official as “policy differences” that led to her being dismissed from the Cabinet.

Demolition job

She had the “pervading sense,” Robredo said, that people are getting used to violent deaths on the streets, equating this to Duterte’s campaign promise to restore peace and order in the country.

“I think the real challenge is, as the leader of the opposition, how do you encourage people to not stop being courageous, to not stop fighting, to be brave enough to stand up for their convictions?,” she asked.

Her friends, the Vice President said, were anxious that she would be the subject of hate and lies especially on social media. But the demolition job had been on even before she resigned from the Cabinet, she said, adding that even her daughters were aware of it.  “We’re not affected because the charges are ridiculous and we laugh them off,” she said.

She doesn’t waste her energy getting angry, said Robredo who said her children describe her as the “calmest” person they know, the perfect “balance” to the “excitable” nature of her husband, the late Naga City mayor and Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo.

She owes her strength, Robredo said, to her upbringing and the difficulties she went through in life, especially when she worked as a public interest lawyer for marginalized sectors. But it was the tragic death of her husband four years ago that made her “stronger,” the widow added.

“I lost my husband at a very unexpected time. I think nothing could be more painful, more difficult, than that. Because of that, I think I am prepared for anything,” Robredo said.

Her husband also unwittingly honed her skills as a politician and a leader. She was the closest ally and sounding board of the late Ramon Magsaysay awardee, who made a mark in Philippine politics as a progressive leader who kept his feet on the ground.

Gutierrez said Robredo has the “canny ability” to read the political landscape, even when she prefers to be in the background and out of the limelight.

If anything, Gutierrez said,  she could be the opposition’s “moral leader” who would “articulate the party’s position on human rights and its bias for the poor and those on the fringes of society.”

Her fellow Liberal Party (LP) member, Ifugao Rep. Teddy Baguilat, stressed the need for their political party to rally behind the Vice President, mainly by “coming up with a real solid position” as the opposition voice in Congress. “Aside from her inner circle and the civil society organizations supportive of her, the (Liberal) Party’s support is critical,” he said.

Gutierrez described Robredo’s leadership style as consultative. She discusses with her staff and a small team of advisers, engages with her friends from nongovernment organizations, and confers with her allies from the LP.

At the end of the day, however, Robredo makes the final decisions. Just as she did last weekend, when she decided it was time to stand up and lead.