Answer to our prayers

“I am not the answer to your prayer. We are the answers to each other’s prayers.”

That quote is typical Leni, exuding a rare humility among our public officials as she embraces the concept of working together to address the problems we face in our country. Indeed, in another quote, she amplifies the need for working together:

“Yung biggest challenge sa aking administration is how to keep people involved, how to make them feel they are part of the solution. How to make them own the problems that beset the nation, kasi without that we will fail again.”

Those quotes are not just election campaign rhetorics. That’s how she worked over the last six years with her grossly underfunded Office of the Vice President.

All she had was a billion pesos, less than the money the Duterte administration gave Pharmally… and there was so much work to do… so many victims of disasters to provide relief… assist medical workers and patients during a pandemic with everything from personal protective equipments to bus rides to the hospitals, and a call center to help families of patients find an available hospital bed among others.

How does she manage? Where does she get the funds and manpower? She gets all the help she needs by inspiring donors and volunteers. For example, logistics entrepreneur Bert Lina offered free use of his luxurious Ube buses to ferry medical workers.

Her office often looks like a warehouse for relief goods, with sacks of rice, assorted canned goods, medicines, clothes and other things calamity victims immediately need. Volunteers sort and do a meticulous inventory of everything sent to the OVP and eventually help in distribution.

They have assembled care packages containing alcohol, some OTC medicines, an oximeter and digital thermometer, with guidelines from doctors for families of COVID patients who are being treated at home. Doctors and nurses check on the patients until they get well.

Strictly speaking, the OVP has no real functions except to wait for a vacancy in Malacañang to happen. She didn’t have to go sleepless for nights on end during typhoons and the pandemic. Now, her successor will have such a high bar for performance to meet.

And to think she was a reluctant candidate, agreeing to run more out of a sense of duty, not for power or glory or wealth.

She lives simply, with a net worth of just about P12 million. She is the only one among the leading presidential candidates who doesn’t live in Forbes Park or Ayala Alabang. She lives in her in-law’s unpretentious condo in the city and a middle class townhouse in Naga.

She has shown it is possible to run a government office efficiently and honestly with every centavo accounted for. She is uncomfortable with the bells and whistles that come with high public office. No wang wang for her.

She launched a campaign with a strict admonition to show everyone radical love. This is how she ended up with a “people’s campaign” of volunteers of various persuasions, but united in their belief that our country deserves better.

At the start, the campaign went here and there. The professional communicator in me got worried that there was no overriding theme, the way we used to run such campaigns in my days with advertising.

But I was wrong. This is a people-driven campaign. People did their own tarps, leaflets, t-shirts and funded their own participation in rallies and spent for their own house-to-house campaign.

There was no mandated visual theme, but somehow, the volunteer artists painting all those murals managed to convey a singular message of hope.

Poet and sportswriter Krip Yuson observed that “it progressed and showed its true colors, not just pink for hope and good cheer, but also a daily rainbow of inspiration radiating from a woman of infinite grace, courage, indefatigability and apparent destiny, the power of voluntarism unleashed a tidal wave of creativity, generosity, personal resolve, and committed energy.”

Obviously, there are enough people who are tired of our rotten politics that stunted our nation’s development for decades. So, as Krip puts it, “the idea of a single champion that could take down a cabal of corrupt families in one sweeping blow struck rational Filipinos as a simple, desirable equation.”

Krip continues: “The enthusiasm among Kakampinks has been unbridled and undeniable. Leni was the champion of hope – that a corruption-bound political system could undergo major change. Filipinos who uphold principles and positive values easily chose the woman of integrity who had already done much, and promised to do more…

“Our champion of hope became one of feverish inspiration; what started as a political campaign quickly became a tireless movement. Volunteer organizations involving doctors and frontliners, lawyers, architects, engineers, educators, students, farm folk, fishermen and indigenes were joined by the creative community who weaponized the rallying symbols, from image to word to music…”

The Leni campaign is not just political. It has been as much a cultural outpouring of talent with visual, musical, theater, popular showbiz stars contributing to a feel-good fiesta where kindred spirits gave it their all as if their lives were on the line. Actually, their lives are on the line and so are ours.

People realized we cannot afford to waste another presidential term. Several generations of Filipinos have chosen our presidents badly, allowing them to put personal power and glory ahead of the common good. Thanks to our past presidents, from being second only to Japan, our neighbors overtook us and many of our people remained poor, uneducated and hungry.

If she wins, Leni can inspire a large number of our people to contribute time, talent and money to the task of transforming our government and our lives.

A Leni Robredo presidency is going to be participative. It will require citizens to commit to help achieve everything she stands for. It will be as volunteer driven as her pink campaign had been.

This is a once in a lifetime chance to elect a leader who will surely not steal, will spend our taxes wisely and will assure a bright future for our grandchildren.

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Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco