Dignity and forbearance

Leni Robredo takes her oath as the Philippines’ 14th Vice President at Quezon City Reception House, June 30, 2016.  NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

Vice President Leni Robredo assumed office last Thursday with the support and goodwill of millions of Filipinos behind her—but also with the continuing opposition, even outright hostility, of two distinct groups.

The first is composed of Marcos loyalists who insist that their candidate, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was cheated at the polls either by Robredo herself or the Liberal Party that backed her. They ignore the basic absurdity of their position: that the automated elections that produced thousands of newly elected officials up and down the government hierarchy and all over the archipelago, from president down to the lowliest mayor, were manipulated in only one instance—in the VP race, for Robredo’s benefit. They ignore as well the findings of more than 100 academicians of differing persuasions who analyzed the poll results and concluded that Marcos Jr.’s charge of cheating is not plausibly supported by the number patterns.

The second includes a motley group of so-called progressive forces and other quarters united only in their contempt for the administration of Benigno Aquino III, his chosen candidate Mar Roxas, the once-dominant Liberal Party, and, by extension, Robredo, their candidate for VP. Despite Robredo’s sterling record as a former pro bono lawyer who defended poor communities and who, after her husband Jesse Robredo’s death, managed to vanquish one of the most entrenched political families in the country and won a seat in the House where she proved herself a conscientious and productive member, many anti-Aquino forces remain loudly unimpressed. Until now, her integrity is questioned mainly on one point—her appearance, in one instance during the campaign, on the same stage with Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda, the wife of the alleged “jueteng” kingpin in the region.

That association is seen to have immediately and irreparably compromised Robredo, making her as devious and mendacious as traditional politicians. But that view imposes on her a more stringent test of ethical and ideological purity that her critics from the Left are seemingly unwilling to apply on themselves—for their own willingness to consort with Marcos Jr., first in 2010 as part of then presidentiable Manny Villar’s senatorial ticket, and currently, in the newly installed administration, the dictator’s son and namesake being a close friend of President Rodrigo Duterte. The Left’s alliance with Mr. Duterte is such that his announced plan to have the dictator’s remains buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani has rendered many in its ranks mute, and its exiled leader curiously indifferent to the implications.

The Left terms its questionable associations in pursuit of power as temporary tactical “alliances.” Those in the nonideological center, like Robredo, are apparently not allowed to be as flexible.

But the rough treatment Robredo has received  from the President’s camp and its allies has only given her the opportunity to show the stuff of which she is made. She is neither playing dirty nor playing victim; instead, she is exhorting Filipinos to throw their support behind the new administration and set divisions aside for the collective welfare. Her speech at her inauguration was of a piece with what is now becoming the standard Robredo pitch: a pledge to put the power of her office behind the herculean work to improve the lives of those in the margins of society; an express endorsement of Mr. Duterte’s roadmap for the nation as a shared vision (“Ang mga pangarap ng ating Pangulo at ating mga plano para sa bansa ay nagkakatugma”); and a call for necessary unity—in finding commonalities rather than differences among citizens—to empower those dreams, whatever one’s state in life, beliefs, or party. All that in a language that is sincere, direct and plainspoken.

Even as Mr. Duterte is showing a welcome new brand of governance with the blunt, impatient style he is bringing to the presidency, his second-in-command is arguably doing the same by deploying forbearance, a sense of the big picture, and an imperturbable sense of dignity in the face of needless provocation and sheer pettiness. Surely there is much to be said for that kind of conduct in Philippine politics.

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