By PROCOPIO RESABAL, JR
TAGBILARAN, Bohol – Vice presidential aspirant Leni Robredo has found inspiration in the late president Carlos P. Garcia, whose political life she describes as one designed by destiny, the same situation she finds herself in.
“After listening to the life story of President Garcia this morning … hindi mo talaga pinipili ang destiny mo. Dumarating lang siya (you do not choose your destiny. It just presents itself),” Robredo said during her speech at the commemoration of the 119th birth anniversary of the former president on Nov 4.
“At any point in our lives, we are asked to make sacrifices, we are called upon to serve,” the Camarines Sur representative added.
The economics graduate of the University of the Philippines said she was happy being wife to former Interior and Local Governments Secretary Jesse Robredo but his untimely death, she added, changed everything.
His death in a plane crash in August 2012 thrust Leni Robredo into the public spotlight and after several months, she was persuaded to go into politics.
The Liberal Party vice presidential aspirant noted that Garcia was also not the first choice of his political party when he ran for the vice presidency, a case similar to hers.
The most illustrious son of Bohol was not the original choice as running mate of presidential candidate Ramon Magsaysay in 1953. He was eventually nominated by a top Nationalista Party leader after the original choice dropped out of the race.
When Magsaysay perished in a plane crash in 1957, Garcia took over as president, and subsequently ran unopposed as President in the election the same year.
Just like Garcia, Robredo, who is also a lawyer, was not the Liberal Party’s first choice as Mar Roxas’ running mate. But she said she does not mind not being the first choice because events have a way of making people change their original plans.
She herself had a change of heart toward public life. When she won a slot in Congress in 2013, she told her children she would only serve for one term. Now she is running for the second highest position in the land in the 2016 national elections.
Robredo also paid tribute to Garcia as an outstanding leader and public servant during his time as congressman, Bohol governor, senator, vice president and ultimately as president of the Philippines.
She said she was struck that when World War II broke out, Garcia, then senator, chose to lead a Japanese resistance movement in Bohol, when he could have conveniently become a Japanese collaborator.
Robredo said Garcia overcame challenges as he put the country and the people’s interest above anything or anyone else. His legacy, she added, is a yardstick for public officials to follow.
In the same forum graced by Robredo at the Bohol Cultural Center, Provincial Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim noted the humility of Garcia who started as a teacher and who was famous for his poetry that earned him the nickname, “Prince of Visayan Poets” and the “Bard of Bohol.”
Rep. Arthur Yap pointed out that Garcia was best known as the “Father of Filipino First Policy” which placed the rights of Filipinos above foreigners, favoring Filipino businessmen over foreign investors, although allowing foreigners to invest capital up to 40 percent in business or industry.
“He made it possible for people like me to make sure that we are integrated in Philippine society,” said the politician with Chinese ancestry.
Yap also described Garcia as “isog, kugihan ug dili hakog (courageous, industrious, and not greedy),” adding that the Boholano leader “did not pour infrastructure projects on Bohol but instead gave them to more depressed provinces” in the country.
