Why the city snubbed Love Baronda?

By Herman M. Lagon

A public commendation should have been the easy part. An Ilongga, now Iloilo City vice mayor, wins election as national chair of the National Movement of Young Legislators, the first woman from the Visayas to do so, and one would think the home council would clap first and argue later. Instead, the applause came from elsewhere. The Pavia municipal council, the Iloilo Provincial Board, and the Antique Provincial Board passed resolutions honoring Lady Julie Grace “Love-Love” Baronda’s election, while the Iloilo City Council rejected a similar measure.

It is worth noting that the NMYL post is not a barangay beauty title. It is a national leadership position in an organization formed under the Aquino youth agenda and composed of elected local legislators aged 40 and below. Baronda formally assumed the role this week after taking her oath as national chair before Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jonvic Remulla on Monday, March 16. Baronda herself said the group represents around 9,000 members nationwide and gives local legislators a channel to raise concerns and training needs to the national level.

Hence, the difference in response naturally raises the question many Ilonggos are already asking in coffee shops, messenger threads, and after-flag-ceremony side comments: why was she recognized by the DILG chief himself, the province, and the nearby LGUs, but not by her own city council? The fairest answer is that there are at least two possible readings, and both can be true at once. The first is procedural: the city council majority said the commendation lacked direct public interest and argued that honors should be tied to concrete benefit or later accomplishments. Majority Floor Leader Rex Marcus Sarabia publicly defended that position and warned against what he called “princess politics,” while some councilors argued that Baronda’s accomplishments as NMYL chair should first be demonstrated. The second reading is political: the rejection did not happen in a vacuum but inside an already tense council environment where Baronda and the majority bloc have publicly clashed, and where the city’s current political alignments are no secret. When a body explains a vote through principle but the surrounding atmosphere smells like rivalry, the public is not foolish for noticing both.

Full disclosure matters here. I taught Lady Julie Grace “Love-Love” Baronda physics when she was still a student at Ateneo de Iloilo. What I remember is not a future vice mayor rehearsing speeches in the corner. I remember a student who was active, grounded, and determined. One memory remains especially vivid: she was the key voice pushing the school to establish a girls’ high school volleyball team. That was not a small thing then. It required persuasion, persistence, and the kind of leadership that does not yet come with a microphone. That team, as many Atenean alumni know, remains one of the school’s most active and competitive programs. I also knew, even then, that public service ran in the family. Yet what stood out in class was not entitlement, but energy and humility. This does not exempt her from criticism now; public officials must always be open to that. But it does explain why it is difficult for some of us who knew her earlier to reduce her present achievement to mere vanity.

So what could be the logical reasons for the province’s recognition? One, the provincial board may simply have taken the broader Ilonggo view. Board Member Rolex Suplico said as much: if an Ilongga becomes NMYL chair, that is a source of pride for Ilonggos, and city and province should not act as if they are strangers whenever one of their own reaches a national platform. He also said the provincial recognition was limited to the achievement itself and not meant as interference in city politics. That is a sensible position. Provincial bodies often think regionally, symbolically, and strategically. They know that honors are not only about the person. They are also about signaling that Western Visayas can produce national leadership. The city council, by contrast, appears to have chosen a narrower test: does this resolution have immediate public interest, direct public welfare implications, or demonstrated results already visible to Iloilo City residents? Those are different political temperaments, not necessarily different IQs. One is expansive and symbolic. The other is restrictive and performance-based, at least in its official explanation.

Still, let us not pretend politics is absent. Of course politics is part of it. These are political bodies. They do not meet inside monasteries. The city council’s rejection came amid clear public friction between Baronda and members of the majority bloc, especially after the “princess politics” remark, which Baronda publicly denounced as misogynistic and demeaning. The majority bloc is allied with Mayor Raisa Treñas, and tensions between the Treñas and Baronda camps had already intensified after their political alliance broke down. In that context, a commendation resolution stops being just a ribbon on a certificate. It becomes a symbolic surrender, or at least a symbolic concession, and politicians are famously stingy with those when relationships have soured. One does not need to be cynical to see this. One only needs to have lived long enough in Iloilo City to know that resolutions, like smiles in public office, are sometimes about text and often about subtext.

There is also the issue of gender, and it would be dishonest to brush that aside. The phrase “princess politics” did not land in a vacuum. Baronda pushed back by calling it misogynistic, and she had reason to do so. The phrase does not merely critique behavior; it frames a woman’s public standing through a gendered stereotype of privilege, ornament, and personality. Male politicians who enjoy inherited networks or visible surnames are usually called strategic, seasoned, or ambitious. Women in similar settings get labels with tiaras hidden inside them. This does not mean every criticism of Baronda is sexist. That would be lazy and unfair. But it does mean certain kinds of language carry extra baggage when directed at a female official whose achievement is being publicly minimized. In a country where women in politics are praised as “strong” one day and reduced to caricature the next, language matters because it reveals the deeper discomfort underneath the policy argument.

What makes this harder, especially for many Ilonggos, is that the NMYL chairmanship is not some vanity plaque handed out after a Rotary lunch. It matters because it gives Baronda a seat at a national table where young legislators exchange policy ideas, build training networks, and engage institutions such as the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines. Baronda said that her priorities include strengthening consultation structures, leadership training, and national-level deliberation of local concerns. Whether she succeeds is a fair question for the future. But election to that chair is already an achievement in the present, especially given the margin reported in media coverage. One can argue that results should follow recognition. Fine. But one can also argue that peer election to a national post by thousands of local legislators is itself already evidence of trust, legitimacy, and political capital. To refuse even symbolic acknowledgment from one’s own council risks looking less principled than petty.

Ultimately, the whole episode says as much about Iloilo politics as it does about Lady Baronda. It tells us that local institutions do not merely decide policy; they also decide who gets public dignity, and when. It tells us that pride can be regional, while resentment can be intensely local. It tells us that public interest is a valid standard, but it can also become a convenient shield when the real issue is political discomfort. As someone who once knew Love-Love Baronda as a student who pushed for a girls’ volleyball team before she ever held a gavel, I find it difficult not to take some pride in her rise. Not blind pride. Not partisan pride. Just the simple pride of seeing an Ilongga reach a national leadership post and knowing that such things do not happen by accident. The city council had every legal right to vote no. But legality is not always magnanimity. Sometimes the real question is not whether a body could refuse to honor one of its own, but why it appeared so intent on doing so.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.