Betcha by golly wow, Jesse & Leni!

Some are already saying that she is the Cory Aquino of this generation — dignified and courageous, honoring and perpetuating her husband’s legacy by her grace in the midst of grief. Like Cory, lawyer Leni Robredo was content to be in the background when her husband Jesse was alive, even if she herself is an accomplished woman. But she stepped up to the task of holding her family and his grieving supporters together even if her heart, perhaps, was breaking into tiny pieces.

Leni also brings to mind the late former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who held a wounded nation together with her courage after the assassination of her husband President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Like Leni, Jackie reached out to those who may have been, could have been, feeling emotional after his death, like his driver Bill Greer. Greer was behind the wheel of the limousine where JFK was shot in Dallas, Texas and analysts would say later on that if Greer stepped on the gas instead of slowing down after the first gunshot that hit JFK, the second (or third) shot, the fatal shot, could have missed the President. Greer felt terribly guilty about that and was reportedly hounded by “If onlys…”

But you know what Jackie did? According to the book Death of a President by William Manchester, she requested that Greer specifically drive the ambulance that carried JFK from the Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Maryland (where he was autopsied) to the White House, his last journey to his official home. She wanted that solemn task reserved for Greer to ease his pain.

Leni’s own reassuring words toward Jesse’s aide Police Senior Inspector Jun Abrazado were a balm on Abrazado’s fresh emotional wounds. The thought crossed many minds (including this writer’s) that the aide should have saved his boss even if it meant “taking a bullet for him,” so to speak.

But Leni (and her daughters) said she only felt gratitude toward Abrazado. “No one is ever prepared for a plane crash,” she said in a press conference in Naga. She and her daughters chose to remember instead the kindness Abrazado showed them while in the service of her husband.

Like Cory Aquino, Leni was a woman of unshakeable faith. Cory always used to say that if Jesus Christ, who had no sin, had to suffer great pain, why should we, human beings with sin, expect to be exempted from suffering?

Leni said she never questioned God on Jesse’s death. I remember one of my Religion teachers in high school saying that death is never untimely. In God’s calendar, one’s homecoming to Him is always timely. Not a second too early or too late.

It is only untimely to those who will miss the person who had gone ahead. As Patricia Robredo said in her tribute to her father at the Naga Basilica, “Papa, maybe you were ready to die, but we weren’t ready to lose you…”

To those of us who believe that we are here on earth for a mission, and that we are given second, third, fourth leases on life because our mission is yet unfulfilled, it is a happy conclusion that Jesse Robredo has fulfilled his. It was time for his reward.

* * *

I did not know Jesse Robredo personally but I knew by his transformation of Naga City, recognized by the esteemed Ramon Magsaysay Foundation, that he was an extraordinary man.

Someone observed that those of us who did not know Jesse were introduced to him in the past week. And what an introduction it was! Truly, actions, even past actions, speak louder than words. Certainly, they also live longer than words.

By his death, Jesse Robredo is showing that Filipinos are not blind to the sacrifices of genuine servant-leaders. And it is not always true, as Mark Anthony says in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”

Budget Secretary Butch Abad, during a memorial held by the Cabinet for their fallen comrade at Malacañang, said that Jesse’s death was a wake-up call, a buzzer to remind them all that someone is keeping tabs on their work — the Filipino people.

Abad said he and Finance Secretary Cesar Purisma couldn’t help but wonder— if they died while in office, would there be the same outpouring of grief and gratitude the likes of which were shown by the nation to Jesse?

Already, people are talking about the “tsinelas leadership” that Jesse espoused in his lifetime. Energy Secretary Rene Almendras said it was the best metaphor for the concept of a servant-leader. Clad in rubber slippers (which he called “sinelas”) in order to reach out to his constituents, most of whom are poor, Robredo showed he empathized with them and knew how it felt to walk in their tsinelas.

Transportation Secretary Mar Roxas says that after Jesse’s death, when government leaders want to exhort themselves or their followers to be honest, accountable to the people and hardworking, all they have to say is “Magpaka-Robredo ka.”

* * *

It was heartwarming to see the Cabinet like one family during Jesse’s wake, setting aside personal and professional differences.

Aside from singing Jesse’s favorites like Impossible Dream and My Way, the Cabinet, led by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, sang the theme song of Jesse and Leni Robredo: Betcha by Golly Wow by The Stylistics.

It is a song their generation swooned to in the ‘80s, and it elicited a spark of magic from Leni Robredo’s expressive eyes. “This song’s for you,” Almendras told Jesse’s widow, “because we know for a fact that Sec. Jesse became who he was also because of you.”

There’s a spark of magic in your eyes

Candyland appears each time you smile

Never thought that fairy tales came true

But they come true when I’m near you

You’re a genie in disguise

Full of wonder and surprise

And betcha by golly, wow

You’re the one that I’ve been waiting for forever

Jesse and Leni Robredo were magic to each other. They brought out the best in each other and the person Jesse became with Leni’s help made many of his countrymen’s wishes come true.

Betcha by golly wow. Jesse was a genie in disguise and he is no more...

(You may e-mail me at [email protected])