‘PINK CONSPIRACY’: Ilonggo doctors, lawyers come together for Robredo, Pangilinan

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

Ilonggo lawyers, doctors, and students gathered in a virtual meeting to manifest their support for the candidacies of Vice President Leni Robredo and Senator Kiko Pangilinan for the country’s top two positions on Wednesday, October 20.

Robredo and Pangilinan were present in the Zoom meeting, as well as some members of their senatorial line-up, including Senator Risa Hontiveros, former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, and Atty. Chel Diokno.

The vice president’s campaign manager, former Senator Bam Aquino, was also present.

Robredo said that even before she joined politics, Iloilo City is her and her husband’s (the late secretary Jesse Robredo) “second favorite city” in the country after their hometown Naga.

She recalled her twin trips to Iloilo City with one of her daughters who was competing in a Math competition. She also brought Naga City councilors to the city to study and replicate the Iloilo River Esplanade.

She also mentioned that Iloilo City and Iloilo province were key to her victory in 2016.

A lot of her projects as vice president under the Angat Buhay program and pandemic response programs were also in Iloilo, including in the education and agricultural sectors.

She also visited the city and the province last March to check on these projects, culminating in a visit to the Uswag Molecular Laboratory in Molo district, which her office also provided support to.

“Iloilo City, even before I became a politician, has been the favorite city of my husband and myself, mainly because we have a lot of friends, the good food, and the progress is something we all aspire to become. When they say Iloilo, it only brings me good memories,” Robredo said.

The vice president said she was overwhelmed by the support from Ilonggos, citing the Oct 8, 2021 motorcade in the city which was met warmly by sightseers and other supporters.

She also thanked Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas, who showed his appreciation for her help.

Treñas had already clarified that his statements of support on social media was not an official endorsement for Robredo, calling her “a friend among presidential candidates”.

Robredo also observed that volunteers were present not just for her, but for their family as well, saying that other campaigns have the machinery, but hers had the energy of supporters.

“2016 was easier since we were part of the administration and a lot of local officials were for us, but now it’s different. But the deluge of volunteers is so overwhelming, and in Zoom meetings, the energy and enthusiasm, and here we have doctors and lawyers who are here who are busy but making time to help in this campaign, we are really very grateful,” she said.

Pangilinan called Robredo’s decision to run as “an answered prayer”, citing a text conversation from last April after the vice president decided against running for the chief executive position and instead focus on local government in Camarines Sur.

Like the vice president, Pangilinan did not expect the outpouring of support that he received after it was reported on Oct. 6 that he will run for the second highest post.

The senator said that they draw strength from supporters, saying “If fear is infectious, strength is even more infectious.”

He narrated sharing the vice president’s request to his wife, Sharon Cuneta, and their daughter Frankie, and prayed on it before deciding to run.

“I did not intend to run for vice president. My plan was to run for re-election [as Senator]. Two days before [announcing to run for president], [Robredo] sent me a text message, and I relayed the message to Sharon, who was with our daughter Frankie at the time. It was 2 in the morning [in New York], and we talked about it, we prayed about it,” Pangilinan narrated about his run.

He also said that becoming vice president would be a “greater opportunity” for him to address food security and hunger issues in the country.

He was appointed in 2014 as Presidential Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization under the Aquino administration, a position he held until running for the Senate in 2016.

“Having been in the agriculture sector for over 10 years, I know that my expertise in food security, supporting our farmers and fisherfolk, and providing interventions to ensure support for farmers and fisherfolk which would lead to better production and eventually lower food prices, and we will finally solved hunger,” he said.

On the difficulty of campaigning during the pandemic, Pangilinan said they will maximize other avenues to reach out to the people, and also encouraged attendees to reach out even outside of their usual circles.

“Zoom meetings will be a regular fare, there will be a few face-to-face selected in an area, and others would have to be directed to live streaming. Of course, there has to be offline activities for those who have no access to Zoom or these portals especially in rural areas where there are no signals. Like [Robredo] said, our volunteers are our strength, so we would like to organize and go to them for discussions. Radio is also a vehicle within which we can reach out to those in the laylayan. The most influential is not media per se, but friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers,” he added.

OTHER MESSAGES

Aquino, Diokno, Hontiveros, and Trillanes also gave short messages to thank Ilonggos for their support and to encourage more to turn out for them.

Diokno said he was happy to be able to turn around the “ngipin” (teeth) comments thrown against him by President Rodrigo Duterte and his supporters.

Duterte blurted the taunt during one of his weekly addresses at the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

A law school dean, Diokno said that their focus should be to give the law “a tooth to bite” injustices in the country, especially to help those who have been at the forefront of the pandemic.

His agenda also include reforms in the barangay justice system, increased use of alternative dispute resolution for businessmen, and the certainty of punishment for those who are guilty for crimes.

“Many know me because of my teeth because every time we talk about the country’s issues, my teeth become a point of discussion. But if trivial things like my teeth are being talked about, we should also talk about the toothless and decaying system of governance,” Diokno said.

Trillanes warned about the current political and economic situation, calling the upcoming election as a “democracy of the past”, saying that if the people vote for the wrong candidate, the condition’s country may be worse.

He also mentioned the emergence of Robredo’s presidential rival, former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., citing their social media operations which he alleged had been running since 2012.

Trillanes said that campaigning for their team should not end in social media as he encouraged people to come out of their echo chambers and reach out to ordinary Filipinos on the ground.

“I want to stress that we are not at the forefront. Right now, the frontrunner is Bongbong Marcos. We find it ironic, maybe in Iloilo the situation is different, but nationwide he is leading by a significant margin. Our efforts should not end on social media. I’m sure you’ve been doing your own way of contributing to the campaign, but we still need to work harder and reach out to ordinary Filipinos,” Trillanes said.

Hontiveros focused her bit on electing Robredo, Pangilinan, and her fellow senate candidates to improving the healthcare system in the country, saying that it needed to be fixed even before the current pandemic.

Hontiveros cited multiple emergency funding and powers granted by Congress to Duterte in responding to the pandemic, which she said was “not enough” and “tainted”.

She even mentioned the current anomaly surrounding the overpriced procurement from Pharmally, which the upper chamber has been investigating in the past weeks.

“I believe that the billions of pesos that were wasted, misused in graft and corruption here within Pharmally, these instead should have been used largely and only for the correct wages and benefits of our healthcare workers, immediate medical supplies, free health services, and especially in the wake of this pandemic and recession, greater support and lifelines for businesses especially for the Micro, Small, and Medium enterprises, jobs and livelihood for workers, employees, and entrepreneurs, and additional ayuda for poor Filipinos,” she said.

Campaign manager Bam Aquino said that their camp felt the “pink-splosion” or the “pink revolution” when Robredo formally announced her candidacy.

The former senator said there is a potential for Robredo and Pangilinan to clinch electoral victory, citing the rising groundswell of support in the past few days.

Echoing his former colleague Trillanes, Aquino said that it will take everyone to campaign to friends, family, and other people they can talk to. He cited the length of time until the election and the energy of supporters.

“The turnout of the people wasn’t present six months ago, one year ago, or five years ago. For our fellows, it’s been so long since we’ve come out and said that ‘We want something else, we know that something wrong is happening and we want to change the direction the country is headed,’ so that in itself is a very small miracle,” Aquino said.

EXPRESSION OF ILONGGO SUPPORT

Dean Rodel Taton of the San Sebastian College Recoletos Graduate School of Law and Atty. Kyle Dinopol read the manifesto supported by over 900 Ilonggo lawyers and doctors within and outside of Iloilo.

The manifesto called Robredo as a “servant leader”, citing her time as a lawyer for marginalized sectors, victims of human rights abuses, and indigenous communities, as well as her track record as Camarines Sur representative and as Vice President.

It also called out the lack of transparency and the proliferation of false information during the Duterte administration, the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Duterte’s close friendship with China.

“We cannot afford another six years of the same brand of leadership, where innocent lives are considered cheap, where words are not taken seriously, where lying is normalized, where reforms are palliatives, where decency is decaying, and where hope for a better future for us and for our children is becoming dim. We need a leader who is committed to serve because she understands that a strong leader is one who works tirelessly to make her followers, regardless of their economic conditions, better versions of themselves. Vice President Leni Robredo is that leader,” the manifesto stated.

Members of the legal and medical professions also had representations of their individual sectors to speak during the event.

Dr. Louie Tirador said that they are taking part of their time to show support and shore up more people to join the cause for Robredo.

Tirador called the vice president’s humility, hard work, intelligence, resourcefulness, and strength “a representative of hope to improve the state of politics in the country”.

He cited her experience before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, including her acceptance of Duterte’s challenge to lead the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs and the assistance she gave to medical frontliners at the height of the pandemic, among others.

“We are all busy people, I’m sure attending to patients [for doctors], and clients for lawyers. In many more days until [May 9] 2022, we make this exception to express our political rights and to support the presidential candidacy of [Vice President] Leni Robredo,” Tirador said.

Dean Jose Mari Benjamin Francisco Tirol of the University of San Agustin College of Law said that their group was “an intersection of law and medicine”.

Tirol added that the support among the medical and legal communities is laudable, but they should not stop there, saying that outreach is very important to make Robredo and Pangilinan, as well as their senatorial lineup, win.

“We are here to dissect a problem in order to determine its cause and introduce solutions. Pink, they say, is the color of Breast Cancer [Awareness] Month, which is true. While I do not want to trivialize the sufferings of those with breast cancer, there is a certain [other] kind of cancer that is plaguing our society right now, and that is the reason why we are here, why we have made a choice, why we have decided to take a stand, gathering together to express our support to VP Leni and her team. We should not rest and be complacent and be confident. I believe that we should not limit our campaign to social media and our communities, but we should also reach out to our friends and relatives here and overseas,” Tirol said.

Former Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog also joined the virtual meet from abroad, where he currently resides with his wife Marivic, who was greeted by attendants, including Robredo, on her birthday.

Mabilog had been the subject of Duterte’s ire since 2016 and left the country after his dismissal by the Ombudsman in 2017 for safety reasons.

The former mayor had been vocal of his support for Robredo in the past few months, saying that she will be the best president for the country and Iloilo City.

He also echoed earlier statements that a lot of work must be done to elevate Robredo and Pangilinan to victory, as well as their senatoriables to increase the country’s progress.

“We need to do what we can individually so we can explain and reach not only our fellow Ilonggos but also our friends and relatives in Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao, to campaign. Like what [Trillanes, Aquino and Diokno] said, we still have to do a lot. So let us all work together and unite not only for our personal interests but also our country,” Mabilog said.