In the wake of the devastation wreaked by super typhoon Nina in the Bicol Region, Vice-President Leni Robredo has been pilloried in social and mainstream media for being “missing in action.”
Camarines Sur has been among the most severely damaged, as well as Albay and neighboring provinces. The fact that CamSur is Robredo’s home province has made her fair game for supporters of President Rodrigo Duterte who see Robredo as a lurking threat to his presidency, what with the media playing up rumors of a plot to oust him.
But even those who think well of Robredo may have begun to have second thoughts about her readiness to assume the leadership of the country, in case of an abbreviated Duterte tenure. Proceeding with her Christmas vacation in the United States with her family, in spite of the approaching calamity, and remaining in the US in the face of the devastation have raised questions about her priorities as a national leader.
One pundit put it to me quite candidly: What would Jojo Binay have done under the circumstances? Knowing the former vice-president, I have no doubt that he would have personally been at ground zero as soon as typhoon Nina made a landfall, leading volunteers and distributing relief goods.
Another question posed to me was: What would the current vice-president’s late husband, Jesse Robredo, have done under the circumstances? I never had the privilege of meeting him, but here is what I dug up in the archives about Jesse Robredo as mayor of Naga City (quoted verbatim):
”December 5, 1992, Naga City was flooded. It was like Ondoy and Habagat. Naga City was full of total darkness due to absence of power supply from CASURECO II. Large trees blocked the road and contaminated drinking water. Guess what, it was cleaned up in less than a week. The power supply was restored in two days time. Trees blocking the road were cut immediately and you can see the road free from mud. How did DILG Secretary do this? He mobilized all the contractors of Naga City, he used the trucks and heavy equipment in clearing the city free of charge. And, he personally led the clearing operations. Imagine that early morning of December 6, 1992, DILG Secretary Robredo is shoveling the mud in the streets and his city hall employees were helping. Every single resident of Naga City was inspired with the action taken by DILG Secretary Robredo…”
VP Binay and Jesse Robredo had the instincts of a leader. They knew their priorities. On the other hand, Leni Robredo, in spite of being the second highest official in the land, apparently acted like the average individual who had already made plans for a holiday vacation and, therefore, could not cancel the trip.
In fact, that was how Robredo’s apologists explained it. In social media, a certain Gomez, responding to critics, posted: “Why are you overreacting? If she wants to spend her holidays with her family and sister in the US, there’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone’s entitled to spend the holidays with their family, same as you and everyone else.”
Gomez further “argued that the vice president cannot stop a typhoon, and that local government units are the ones responsible in looking after their constituents. Camarines Sur Gov. Miguel Villafuerte and Naga Mayor John Bongat are on top of the situation and have evacuated people to safety.”
The apologist is absolutely right – that is, if Robredo were not the vice-president of the country. But she is. She is not your average Juana or Maria. She is also being primed by supporters as head of the opposition and is just a heart attack (or a coup) away from being chief executive and commander-in-chief.
For sure, a long-planned overseas Christmas holiday with family members, is not easy to cancel, whatever natural calamity or disaster might be looming. It really depends on how important one considers the threatened victims of the calamity or how one values one’s image as a leader.
Several years ago, my wife and I were about to board a flight from Phoenix, Arizona to Europe, in the course of a long-planned trip to promote the 3rd Global Filipino Networking Convention in Cebu. But my mobile phone suddenly rang and we received the news that my mother-in-law had just died. Because the deceased was the mother of my wife and was someone dear to me and my family, rushing to her internment was more important than the trip to Europe, no matter what the additional expenses and other inconveniences were. We cancelled our trip and immediately booked a flight to the Philippines.
It was simply a matter of priorities.
Were the people of Camarines Sur and the people of the Bicol Region, high on Robredo’s list of priorities? The decision she made to proceed with her trip – although seemingly logical and practical (she could probably not have been as effective as the provincial officials of CamSur and Albay in managing relief operations) – may have sent the wrong signals about her leadership instincts.
To put the issue in perspective, here is what was said about US Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush in a newspaper editorial, when Louisiana was struck by massive flooding in August 2016, while Obama was on vacation.
“Vacation or not, a hurting Louisiana needs you now, President Obama – Last week, as torrential rains brought death, destruction and misery to Louisiana, the president continued his vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, a playground for the posh and well-connected. We’ve seen this story before in Louisiana, and we don’t deserve a sequel. In 2005, a fly-over by a vacationing President George W. Bush became a symbol of official neglect for the victims of Hurricane Katrina… It’s past time for the president to pay a personal visit, showing his solidarity with suffering Americans.”
The editorial added: “Like his predecessors, Obama has no doubt discovered that crises keep their own calendar, even when commanders-in-chief are trying to take some time off the clock. It’s an inconvenience of the presidency, but it’s what chief executives sign up for when they take the oath of office.”
Indeed, rushing to the side of beleaguered constituents is an inconvenience of high national office, but it’s what Leni Robredo signed up for when she agreed to run for vice-president.
It can be argued that Robredo is “helping coordinate the relief operations for typhoon ‘Nina’ in the Bicol Region, while on a break in the US,” to quote her spokeswoman, Georgina Hernandez, and that “a team from the office of the vice president (OVP) has been dispatched to the affected areas to facilitate relief and emergency response operations on the ground.”
But as the Louisiana editorial said about Obama, the president of the United States needed “to pay a personal visit, showing his solidarity with suffering Americans.” Likewise, Vice-President Leni Robredo needed to do the same in CamSur and the Bicol Region to show her solidarity with her suffering constituents.
In an August 2015 article in US News & World Report on the 10th anniversary Hurricane Katrina, Democratic pollster Geoff Garin observed that Bush’s tepid response to the disaster “raised fundamental questions in people’s minds about how in touch he was while there was chaos in people’s lives, and how much he cared about it. And it raised questions about the basic competence of his administration.”
The same questions may have been raised about how in touch Robredo is with the chaos in her constituents’ lives and how much she cares about them.
Of course, Robredo can always make good the next time another disaster pummels our hapless nation (God forbid). Hopefully, she will learn a few lessons in crisis management, the burden and inconveniences of a national position, and the need for sharpening her leadership instincts.
Incidentally, President Rodrigo Duterte – whatever may be said about his verbiage and his deadly management style – is familiar with all of these and there is no doubt about his leadership instincts.
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