Leni’s leanings

“Robredo’s adopted agenda had little in common with Duterte’s. The disparity extended to other issues.

Since she broke into the national scene, shoved into the limelight when the Liberal Party’s first choice as vice-presidential candidate decided that her chances as a presidential candidate were far better than playing second fiddle to a principal against whom she was better qualified, more competent and more accepted, Leonor Robredo had been mostly a blank slate. She was no Grace Llamanzares. Her advocacies were copied from the general themes set by her deceased husband.

He governed without regard for the trappings of power. She tried to emulate him. He was simple and unassuming. She attempted the same. Those formed part of her public persona and the media machine of the Liberal Party (LP) churned to have her late husband’s sheen actually rub off on her.

But since she was a desperate eleventh-hour substitute, a virtual Plan B for the LP that could not get an acceptable candidate to run beside their nag, Robredo was shoved to the front of the line absent a personal platform or a game plan other than that dictated by the LP.

Had the LP won in 2016, then Robredo can simply adopt their three-term game plan to perpetuate their hold and institutionalize the quality of governance Benigno Aquino III had started, extending that through Manuel Roxas and finally through Robredo.

To their misfortune the LP lost the presidency when the public had decided that they’ve had enough of brazen bungling and buffoonery. For the electorate, the nightmare of one or two more terms of the same was simply unacceptable. So, they shook the rotted rafters and routed the rats, sending them scurrying deep into their ratholes there to nurse their wounded egos and ambitions.

The curse of the blank slate had suddenly become even more noticeable and real for Robredo.

She could no longer apply the LP platform under a Duterte presidency.

Note her dilemma. As a result of the LP electoral machinery, Robredo was able to claim the vice presidency. The same was denied the LP presidential candidate. His rejection was so overwhelming that no amount of throttling up, revving and running on all cylinders worked to counter the electoral juggernaut that had given Duterte his mandate.

Duterte ran on an anti-elitist, pro-people nationalist platform that focused on economic resilience and independence as well as an anti-illegal drugs advocacy to address the runaway violence he inherited from a dispensation characterized by rogue cops and complicit officials deeply involved in drug trafficking, including the recycling of drugs.

Robredo’s adopted agenda had little in common with Duterte’s. The disparity extended to other issues. Where the previous administration had not only militarized our foreign policy against neighboring China, it also deepened our dependence and economic subservience to the West.

The virtual narco-state involving ranking Aquino officials in illegal drug trafficking needed to be addressed. On these two issues alone, policy disparities between Robredo and Duterte were unavoidable.

As the ranking opposition leader, should her title be taken seriously and operationalized, then she would be going against the Dr. Frankensteins in the LP that had effectively created her from nothingness, given her a platform partial to perpetuating the LP in power and figuratively spawning a politician from parts buried six feet under when her husband passed away.

Robredo blew it when she leaned the wrong way and effectively prioritized the LP game plan over the people’s agenda realized through President Duterte and repeatedly revalidated through approval ratings that far outpace his electoral lead in 2016.

Leaning askew of the people’s will condemned Robredo to the dog house, there barking at the moon over every little thing her President did, conditioned of course by idiots and clowns around her inherited from the LP asylum.

Now a rare chemistry of presidential magnanimity, political tact and statesmanship has thrust her where she’s never been and has effectively allowed her to fill her blank slate herself. Indeed, everyone deserves a second chance.