Lean Legarda Leviste on future leaders, Bill Clinton & Che Guevara

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us. — Theodore Roosevelt

One of the brightest youth leaders in the Philippines today is Yale University Class 2015 economics and political science undergraduate, college champion debater, Philippine STAR Young Star columnist and Philippine Model Congress (PMC) founder, 20-year-old Leandro “Lean” Legarda Leviste.

Instead of spending summer on a leisurely vacation, Lean is now here working daily at the corporate strategy unit of a top local corporation and taking an evening class at the Ateneo for additional academic credits for Yale.

From April 2012 to February 2013, Lean served as Yale College Council secretary and represented student interests in weekly meetings with Yale College deans and various parts of the university. He was an editorial intern in New York at his favorite magazine The Economist last year and  he is also fluent in Mandarin.

Lean competed every weekend last year for the Yale Debate Association, ranked No. 1 debate team in the world in 2012. He won 1st Place at the Yale Political Union Freshman Prize Debate, 1st Place in Extemporaneous Speaking at IASAS Southeast Asian Cultural Convention in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and was elected to the leadership of international conferences such as being president of 400-delegate Human Rights Commission at Thimun-Hague. 

The PMC, which Lean founded last year, had 500 youth delegates from all over the country attending. He and five other top college students organized this first simulation youth congress in the Philippines to debate national issues and propose reforms for two weeks in the meeting rooms of the Philippine Senate.

PHILIPPINE STAR: I heard you’re already an expert in politics and history.

LEANDRO LEGARDA LEVISTE: I just love to read current affairs, study history, politics and biographies. One of my idols, New York senatorial candidate Cory Booker, recently retweeted you to his one and a half million Twitter followers! He’s an example of a politician I look up to. He’s a graduate of Stanford, a Rhodes scholar, went to Yale Law School and instead of working as an investment banker or top law firm to earn millions, he ran as a councilor of an inner city place. He went into local politics in the then crime-infested area of Newark before he became famous 10 years ago. There’s a documentary on him entitled Street Fight.

Yes, Cory Booker follows me on Twitter, I admire him, too. Congratulations for organizing the Philippine Model Conference with 500 youth leaders.

 It’s not only me, my co-organizers are hardworking, too. You should see their curriculum vitae — compared to them, I’m the most average. Lance Katigbak is now his third year at Harvard studying film; Tricia Peralta is third year at Wharton studying business; Thomas Rosal is now third year at Columbia; Alonzo Virata is in second year at Stanford studying international relations; Raffy Tanpho is an outstanding second year UP student majoring in business administration. I met them through debate competitions, half of them graduated valedictorians of their high schools. 

 Thomas Edison once said, “Vision without implementation is delusion.” When I thought of the idea for this youth conference, we assembled students with passion. We worked for six weeks, often up to 2 a.m., last year and then we launched PMC as a completely student-run and student-fund-raised project from corporate sponsors.

 How many applicants were there and how did you spread the word about this project?

 This year, we had 1,400 applicants, and 500 were accepted, mostly through social media. A lot of the delegates are student council leaders or founders of their youth organizations from all over the Philippines. I discovered that 50 of the youth delegates had to travel more than 10 hours to Manila to join us, nakakatuwa.

Aside from debating proposed reforms and laws, did you have speakers?

Yes, we had Senator Bam Aquino and Senator Sonny Angara. Senator Bam was fantastic, the most down-to-earth guy. Apart from his impressive academic credentials and going into social entrepreneurship, he recounted that he protested at Edsa 2 but he said, “You cannot always be an activist,” he wants to be more constructive. Senator Bam assigned a staff to monitor our sessions and to take notes throughout our meetings, he said if we have good proposals, he promised to file them as bills in the Senate. Senator Sonny was also inspiring, he shared his ideas as a former three-term congressman representing Aurora. There were open- forum questions.

I heard the 92-year-old business leader Washington SyCip inspired you, what did he say?

Mr. Washington SyCip, he’s my new idol. I was so inspired by someone like him who has so much influence, but can still retain his integrity. There’s a saying that “power corrupts” but SyCip is an example of an influential person with integrity. Before his speech, he called me to ask if he could freely discuss corruption issues, I said it’s okay. His speech and the open forum were uncensored. He’s remarkable. He’s the only Filipino I know who has met 14 or 15 Philippine presidents, except Aguinaldo. He also said: “Education is the great equalizer,” encouraging us to focus on our education.

Who are the political leaders you look up to the most? Why?

Bill Clinton. I read his biography First in His Class by a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Maraniss. His life story is inspiring, it shows how he came from nothing. His dad died before he was born, he grew up with an abusive step-dad in one of the poorest places in America. To show you he was set to fail, his brother was in and out of jail for drug dealing. This was someone who had all the odds stacked against him, but Bill Clinton excelled always and he has this burning passion.

You were born to better circumstances, but still seem very motivated.

 Yes, I idolize Clinton, but I couldn’t identify with him in that sense. Siguro I could identify better with two other US presidents whom I also admire — the cousins Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Both came from aristocratic families, each was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but their presidencies were the most pro-poor with such initiatives as the anti-trust law, the welfare state and the New Deal.

The two Roosevelts went against people of their social class, like Morgan, the Rockefellers, etc. To me, that is inspiring, because it shows the responsibility of those who were born with advantages in life to those who were not. Teddy Roosevelt is my idol, the most interesting man to ever become US president.

It is important for young people born to privilege to put to good use their privilege. Another leader I admire was the revolutionary Che Guevara. A son of wealthy Argentinian parents, he was sheltered growing up, but in the final year of medical school, he embarked on what is now known as his “Motorcycle Diaries.” He went all around Latin America in three months and saw how ordinary people lived. He also used his medical knowhow to help the poor. I’ve read his diary, it’s inspiring.  Che Guevara was once on a ship, he saw the rich at the helm, while the poor were on a tugboat behind and being dragged by the ship, he saw the inequality and that’s exactly how the Philippines is today.

My point is this, who is going to change our society? The privileged few, they just have to reject how they were raised.

Who was the earliest politician in your dad’s family? Your cousin Mark Leviste is now a successful Batangas vice governor. I heard your mom Senator Loren Legarda’s grandfather was also a mayor of San Pablo City in Laguna?

Yes, my maternal great-grandfather was San Pablo City mayor. The first Leviste politician was my great-granduncle Feliciano “Sanoy” Leviste, he was governor of Batangas province for 24 years, who died poor. People were trying to convince him to run for senator, but when he saw the high costs of printing posters, he declined to run.

Anyone in Philippine politics that you idolize, not counting your mother?

Pedro Abad Santos, he was from a well-off, landed family, medical board and bar exam top-notcher, but he became the founder of the Partido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PSP) or Philippine Socialist Party in 1929. His younger brother was Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, who chose martyrdom rather than collaborate with the Japanese invaders. I idolize those born with a silver spoon but who want to give back to society.

During the recent senatorial campaign of your mom, you went to many places to make speeches for her, what were the most unforgettable places?

 It’s easy to say the most unforgettable were places of big rallies with tens of thousands of people, but what I appreciate the most were the times I separated from the main Liberal Party group and visited the local places and really interacted with the people. In politics, you need to be authentic, you need to interact with people.

The election campaign was a good excuse for me to see the entire country. For example, I couldn’t forget in Batangas two places — barangays Dimakita and Dimatagpuan (laughs). Seriously, rural areas like the upland barangay Baklas in Calaca town of Batangas and barangay Payapa Ibaba, these are places that were never, ever visited by national officials, not even by provincial officials.

 The national campaign was eye-opening, it made me see how life is for the majority of Filipinos. For most of us who grew up in Metro Manila, our world is mostly our private schools, Greenbelt Malls and Makati only.

I not only saw the lives of the people, but also the natural sceneries. Bicol is really beautiful, especially Sorsogon and Albay provinces, which are both centered by volcanoes, Mount Mayon and Mount Bulusan, respectively. So whatever town you go to, you’ll have a nice view of the beautiful landscapes. There’s so much potential for tourism.

Yale was the first Ivy League school with Asian students. From the Philippines, who else went there apart from Japanese-era President Jose P. Laurel?

Yes, Chinese students enrolled at Yale in the 19th century. From the Philippines, there’s Senator Jovito Salonga, plus four American Governor Generals of the Philippines like Taft and Harrison.

There are so many smart people at Yale, it’s humbling, it’s also an opportunity to learn a lot from others. We all have our own field of expertise. For example, in my first year, our two connecting dorm rooms had four of us there, two guys from Iowa and Kentucky, me, and a guy from Tijuana, Mexico which is on the border with San Diego, California. Tijuana is one of the drug smuggling capitals in the world. This dorm-mate of ours went to high school in San Diego but he lived in Tijuana, so he would travel six hours every day back and forth to school, across the border!

Across the hall of our dorm room was the first student ever to study in America from South Sudan, which became a country in July 2011 and that was also when our school year started.  Just next door across the hall was this student who was written about by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

His parents and all siblings died in the civil war. He was raised by missionaries and became a star student in the refugee camp in Kenya. He read all the books donated in the library of the refugee camp. He did his homework drawing on the sand.  He was accepted into the African Leadership Academy in South Africa and that school gave him the opportunity to go to Yale. The Dean of Admissions of Yale personally made sure he got in. English was his fifth language, because there are lots of dialects in Africa. He’s always in the library. I admire his hard work. I’m inspired by his work ethic. When you’ve gone through all that in life, you appreciate the value of education. This remarkable student lived just across our dorm room.

Any modern-day politician in the Philippines you admire but have not met?

Gibo Teodoro. I’ve met almost all our politicians, except him. His slogan “galing at talino” (ability and intelligence) is what also inspired me. Gibo is an example of a political leader who does not need to be an actor or rely on the name of his parents. He shows us that to be a good politician, you have to be a good student and a good technocrat.

What are your plans after college? Go into politics?

Go into business or work in business in the US first, maybe go into social entrepreneurship before ever thinking of entering politics, because there’s a lot more for a young person to learn.  You know after the election campaign, I’d thought I’d be more enamored with politics. To be honest, the work of politics is exciting, but politics itself can be toxic and turns idealistic young people away. There are so many would-be great leaders in this country who don’t enter politics, because they’re turned off by politics.

It that a reason you founded the Philippine Model Conference?

With PMC, we hope to encourage and inspire outstanding young people to join government in the future, so that our politics will not always be just all the same old faces and the same old names, but to have new blood.

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