Sec. Jesse Robredo’s Wish

I only met this man twice, but this limited chance made me admire how good a government official he is, with  his feet firmly on the ground. With his sudden death, I can’t help but treasure these moments as I try to gather inspiration so that in my own little ways, I may be able to help Sec. Jesse achieve his dream not for himself, but for us and this nation.

Our first meeting was scheduled at 9am at the DILG office building. As we enter his office, he immediately stood up from his desk and shook our hands. He was wearing his usual semi-barong uniform, flashing a very warm and welcoming smile as if saying, ‘Come in. I am here and I am ready to listen.’ From that moment on, I knew, he was not your ordinary politician.

During that time, the President has already released a draft of the palace’s stand on SK abolition and it was DILG’s turn to make a stand by studying further if PNoy’s decision of just placing a youth representative in the barangays is most apt for the situation. Sec. Jesse, opened his office doors to us and listened to us with big ears. We laid down our proposal on how we think the Sangguniang Kabataan could be reformed and how it could serve its purpose best under the platform of transparency and accountability to the people that it serves.

We exchange thoughts, we shared experiences and views and we saw from our end how this man values the youth and how he trusted that the Sangguniang Kabataan--the youth representatives in the government, could still be a mechanism for bringing about positive change in our society. With that much trust, he ordered his secretary to draft a suggestion letter to the President, highlighting the reform measures that we were proposing. With his phone, he called a reporter and asked him if he could drop-by his office to interview us and to publish a press release regarding the DILG’s stand on SK reformation.

We were overwhelmed. While majority of the politicians were pointing out all the negative things they see about SK, Sec. Jesse saw even the smallest amount of goodness that’s left with SK, and he held on to it. He believed that those small amount of goodness could produce a ripple effect, given the right support and enough faith in the youth.

To all Sangguniang Kabataan officials, let us not disappoint Sec. Jesse. If not because of him and his trust with the youth, you might not be holding any positions right now. The Sangguniang Kabataan could just have been a piece of our country’s history, leaving a mark that it was the youth’s government that has not served its purpose. As we thank him for saving our niche in government service, let us make him proud that he had made the right decision. Do your best to serve your purpose of addressing youth concerns, of uplifting the lives of our fellowmen and of being of service to those who are in need. He would be smiling at us from heaven if we would be able to achieve local governments and SKs that are highly functioning, transparent and accountable to the people.

I felt lucky enough to have had that opportunity to meet and be listened to by a high ranking government official and an internationally recognized public servant, but after a few years, I recently got the chance to meet him again face to face as he represented the President was supposed to deliver the keynote address  at the closing ceremonies of the 9^th National Youth Parliament in Naga City last May. He read the President’s 7 minute speech and shared us a story of his own, of what turned out to be a challenge.

It was a story of his conversation with 3 grade six public school students whom he had a chance to speak with during his visit to a far flung school. He asked these students of their dreams; one student said that she would want to be a teacher someday so that she could teach children in their area so that they wouldn’t have to walk kilometres of distance to be able to study. The other student said he dream of becoming an engineer so that he could build infrastructures that are needed in their area and so that he could fix their roads to help people have easy transportation. The last student said that she would want to be a doctor so that she could attend to those sick people in their area who have no access to health services.

Sec. Jesse said that if we will look at it, the story seems to be shallow, but if we look at it deeply, these were dreams of poor students who want to be successful not for their own sake--these were dreams of poor kids who want to be successful because they wanted to serve others and those who are in greater need than them. Now that our priorities and dreams seem to be focused on ourselves, Sec. Jesse ended his speech with a wish: “Sana pag dumating ang panahon na kayo’y nagtagumpay na, maalala ninyo ang kwentong ito at maalala nyo nang nangangarap pa kayo, hindi kayo nangarap para sa inyong sarili, nangarap kayo para sa iba.”

I hope that his death would not remind us of a plane crash but instead, may his death remind us that once there was a man who has advocated good governance, who believed so much in the youth’s potential, who dreamed not for himself but for others and who have offered himself selflessly so that this country could say that a transparent and accountable government is possible, that we can change our paradigms and that we are indeed, a country of good Filipinos.