A roller-coaster ride to vice presidency

It was a roller-coaster ride driven by fate that brought Leni Robredo to the second-highest elected post in the country.

Robredo, the incoming Vice President, believes fate went to work from the time her husband, then Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, died in 2012 to her reluctant decision to enter politics in the 2013 congressional race in the third district in Camarines Sur province.

With her meteoric rise in politics in a span of just three years—from a neophyte member of the House of Representatives to her victory as Vice President, the first from the Bicol region—Robredo believes all these happened for a purpose.

“I don’t know if you believe in fate. When I decided to enter politics, I was comforted by my faith that these things are happening [for a] reason,” she told the Inquirer on Saturday.

Robredo said she was so surprised when she defeated Nelly Villafuerte, the wife of former Camarines Sur Rep. and Gov. Luis Villafuerte, in the congressional race in 2013 that it took some time for her to believe that she was already a lawmaker.

Going to Congress

Robredo’s journey to Congress in 2013 was set by circumstances that nearly split the alliance of political forces loyal to her husband, Jesse, a former mayor of Naga City.

To save the unity of the alliance, then Naga Vice Mayor Gabriel Bordado Jr. and a group of supporters marched to Robredo’s house to persuade her to run in the congressional race instead of him.

Bordado was chosen by the group as its candidate against Nelly in the district which Luis represented for nine years or three straight terms. Luis, the patriarch of the Villafuerte political clan, is Jesse’s uncle.

Bordado said he and Jesse’s older brother, Butch, were able to convince Robredo to run by replacing him in the congressional race, hours before the deadline of submission of certificates of candidacy (COC) on Oct. 5, 2012.

A longtime friend, colleague and political protégé of Jesse, Bordado recalled that Robredo was at first enraged by his proposal. “I told her that she’s not a novice in politics because of her experience in Jesse’s campaign in all elections,” he said.

On the morning of the last day of filing of COC for the 2013 midterm elections, Jesse’s supporters in Naga coined the phrase, “Ubos kun Ubos” (All for All) and begged Robredo to run against the Villafuerte matriarch. By the afternoon, she acceded.

Purpose

“Whatever is given me, I must perform well and do justice to it,” Robredo said.

She said her and her three daughters’ lives had been in transition following her victory. She is finding a middle ground where they could balance and enjoy the ordinary life they had with the expected attention that would be given them now that she is the Vice President.

Aika, 28, the eldest of the three, refuses to dwell on the new chapter in their lives. She said she does not see a 180-degree turn in their lifestyle and security.

Their father used to tell them not to forget where they came from, she said. He often told them to stay humble and maintain the life they knew before their father was elected mayor.

Laid-back

To Ana Leilani Corpuz, 50, Robredo would always be the laid-back yet intelligent girl she knew from school and work.

Corpuz was her schoolmate in elementary and high school at Colegio de Sta. Isabel (CSI, now Universidad de Sta. Isabel) in Naga. They also worked together at the Bicol River Basin Development Program from 1986 to 1989, a project that was then steered by Jesse. Around 1987, they became coteachers at CSI.

“She was good in class, but she was never one to actively compete against other students. She did not exert much effort, but she was also among the top performers,” Corpuz said.

She said Robredo shunned the limelight and chose to stay at the background while her husband performed his duties as a public official.

“She was at peace and so focused on her family that when I wrote a story about her in a local newspaper, she asked me why I took her as a subject since her life was so boring,” Corpuz said.

When Robredo declared that she would run for Vice President, Corpuz and about 100 of their batchmates from CSI Class of 1982 organized themselves to campaign for her.

They also gathered people to pray for Robredo in Naga’s Plaza Quince Martires and at Jesse’s tomb at Eternal Gardens during the weeks of canvassing of votes to support her amid accusations of cheating from the camp of her closest rival, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. With a report from Shiena Barrameda