Looking for a place for Leila
Like us, many first-time visitors had never met the senator before, but we all saw the beginnings of a frame-up, degradation, oppression, and injustice. Her case was just too flagrant to not be noticed; her principal accuser, after all, was then president Rodrigo Duterte himself and his enforcers, especially in Congress. Duterte had even made open threats to get back at her, for her human rights investigations of him, and, according to a hitman-turned-state witness, had actually tried to have her assassinated. We felt it important, our simple duty, really, to let her known we cared. She went on to take her incarceration with amazing courage and unwavering faith.
What’s in store
Last Aug. 27, De Lima marked her 65th, her first birthday as a free woman. Her day began with a Mass celebrated by Bishop Teodoro Bacani with her three spiritual advisers and Father Jerome, parish priest of the Edsa Shrine. It seemed a lifetime ago when Vergel and I had last been with her on her 60th, in jail. After that the pandemic isolated her from us parishioners of Parokya ni Leila, as her visitors became known.
We were once again with her, at the Shrine, a good-sized crowd of familiar faces, but in my assessment falling short for the important observance.
Anyway, what then is in store politically for De Lima? A midterm election is coming up and friends have started sounding us off for contributions in support of very competent and qualified candidates for the Senate—we all know who they are. We also know who they are who are now in the Senate, and have always wondered how in God’s good justice people like them should be there at all. And now we further wonder how they continue to top the polls, beating our good men and women.
No wonder when we asked former retired senator Frank Drilon if he would consider running again, he just chuckled and shook his head. And he only had to name those ex-convicts and clowns lording it over in his once august house.
Sacrifice
But what happens when qualified and decent people stop running for public office? My dad, himself a congressman for Manila before martial law cut short his fifth term, had always believed running for public office a sacrifice, definitely not, as he himself observed in his retirement, “the fastest way to power and wealth.”
Still, Dad was convinced a public office offered the best opportunity to help one’s constituents “in a big way.” Through legislative work, a congressman “could change lives for the better and, with his pork barrel,” help build and improve roads schools, provide scholarships, hospitals, medical centers, and other infrastructure and public facilities, and, “yes, even community centers with basketball courts,” not to mention help create jobs.
Dad was a lawyer, and he was consistently voted outstanding congressman. He also wrote a newspaper column, “This is My Own,” educating the public on how Congress works, a subtle advocacy for public watchdogging in helping ensure it works as it should.
Congressmen of his time were the best sons the country’s districts could offer, he noted. “Even those from notorious families,” he said, “were well-schooled and seemed to understand the demands of the job and somehow rose to it once elected.”
Also, electoral results, though produced manually, not electronically as today, were more or less truthful—a paper trail saw to it. Indeed, candidates should not only demand, but do their best by stirring up public pressure to ensure, transparency and fairness before throwing their hat into the ring.
But transparency and fairness are only part of the problem. Voter education is another, otherwise the nation will continue to have ex-convicts and clowns dominating the charting of its future. There’s a saying that we get the government we deserve, and that our fate is in our hands. I only know we deserve better, but surely it’s going to take more than prayers to turn things around .
