Robredo to get highest honor PH can bestow

Late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo

Exactly 100 days after his death, the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo will receive the highest award the country “can bestow on any Filipino.”

Robredo will join other recipients like Presidents Emilio Aguinaldo and Ramon Magsaysay, former Senator and martyred opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr., and diplomat Gen. Carlos P. Romulo, who once served as president of the United Nations General Assembly.

They all received the Quezon Service Cross, the “top recognition a Filipino can receive from the Republic,” according to Malacañang.

“This is the highest award that the Republic of the Philippines can bestow on any Filipino,” said presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, noting the award had the “concurrence of the two houses of Congress.”

Conferment ceremonies will be held in Malacañang Monday, 100 days after Robredo was killed on Aug. 18 in a plane crash in the waters off Masbate. The plane’s pilot, Capt. Jessup Bahinting, and his Nepalese copilot, Kshitiz Chand, also died in the crash. Christian V. Esguerra