Rest in peace Secretary Robredo

No, this can’t be happening. Not him. Why him? Unbidden thoughts about government officials I would rather see go filled my head. I willed them to go away.

Shock and denial. I had looked up the stages of grief in the Internet after my grandfather died a few weeks ago. I wanted to be prepared when I experience them. I had no idea that I would feel grief when I found out that Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Jesse M. Robredo was missing after his plane crashed in Masbate and was eventually found dead. He was a government official whom I had never met. I never worked for a project that he was involved in.  I could not figure out why it mattered so much to me that he be found alive and well.

I reviewed my notes from a 2009 trip to Mt. Isarog in Naga City and remembered why. I interviewed two dozen volunteer forest guards or Bantay Gubat about their work protecting the mountain. They consistently said the same thing: they were not afraid to do their job because their mayor supported them. They were poor landless farmers and patrolling Mt. Isarog was something they did for free. They said that they loved the mountain and understood how keeping the forests healthy had an impact on their own lives and their farms. They risked their lives because the illegal loggers they accosted were sometimes armed. They continued patrolling the forest anyway. If they reported an illegal logger, they could count on their mayor to believe them and help them file the proper case.

The Naga City mayor at that time was Mayor Jesse Robredo. When I returned from the trip, I had to do a Google check on him because the stories that the Bantay Gubat told me about him made him seem like a hero, even a saint. The Internet search results turned up his accomplishments: education reform, international awards for Naga City under his watch, his own Ramon Magsaysay Award. I understood why the Bantay Gubat of Mt. Isarog spoke of him with awe. He found innovative solutions to problems that his city had. He was a mayor any town or city would be very lucky to have.

I welcomed his appointment as Secretary of DILG by President Noynoy Aquino. I heard predictions that he would not be strong enough to fight the corruption seemingly inherent in the Philippine National Police and the local government system. Two years into the job, it appeared that those predictions were not coming true. He managed to institute programs on transparency.  He activated local councils that used to be just superfluous provisions in the Local Government Code.

He did his work without fanfare and did not plaster his face on tarps the way other government officials shamelessly do. A lot of us believe that his work was starting to make a difference in the way local government units function. A schoolmate even thinks that he should be the next President. 

I guess that is why it hurts so much to think that he is gone. There are very few people who can inspire poor, landless farmers to patrol a mountain and risk their lives. He made them see that the work they did was important.

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