[A re-post from Facebook, 3 September 2009]
A broken heart, for anyone, is the hardest to heal. There’s pain, denial, and a deep feeling of hurt, sadness, and aimlessness. What I and my colleagues are going through the past few days is no different.
It feels like there’s a hole, an emptiness, wrought from a battle prematurely ended. A pain that is sympathetic to our leader’s own. Who would have thought that Mar, sacrificing his bid for the presidency, could be this personal?
But IT IS personal.
HE is my personal choice, for my own reasons and principles.
Truth be told, I have never lasted in a job for more that eight months. With Mar and his team, I have stayed for more than a year.
I signed up knowing Mar was someone I could possibly trust – with my future, my family, my friends, and my country. But to put my stake on a man for all of that isn’t an overnight thing. It was a six-month process that led me to understand who he is, what was needed in the job, and what was necessary to make the vision, a reality.
I also stayed because it’s an amazing experience to be surrounded by strong, brilliant hearts and minds – young and old – all believing in change, all working for change. We believed in Mar. We knew what we got ourselves into, and we were willing to give what was being asked of us.
At some point, there was still a struggle within me until one dark day, a friend and mentor told me: COMMITMENT is FREEDOM.
I started a joke…
I used to joke that I had a fling with Europe but I was committed to the Philippines. Though jokes are half-meant, mine is wholly the truth. My heart belongs to this country. I work and serve for its positive transformation. So now, to make it happen, all I needed was to be completely free. All I need to do was to choose.
Mar has earned his right to be MY President and I would fight for him any day. Through his work and his work ethic, I knew he was someone I would want to be accountable to. He was someone who knew, that as My President, he was also accountable to me. He deserves my sacrifices, as much as I deserve his.
In February during our general staff meeting, I asked him if he was ready and willing to fight with us and for us – tooth and nail – to the very end, just as we were for him. He looked me straight in the eye and broke the silence by solemnly replying, “I am.”
He then joked that it was as if it were a marriage proposal, and with a laugh it was all we needed to know. We were ready.
We weren’t ready though, for his latest sacrifice. It was our ultimate test of being his staff, his supporters. We shed tears because we knew he was capable of it, and we knew how much it hurt. It was every bit as personal to him as it was to us.
He was our President. He still is. What he did made him all the more deserving of the position. What he did has shown us the kind of man he is - the kind of man we always knew, and yet the world always failed to see.
Given recent developments, we are at a standstill and yet we move forward. My loyalty to Mar remains as my passion to fight for him has deepened even more. It’s been a long time since I fought this hard for anyone, and it is heartening to find my colleagues (now great friends) in the same journey.
The Dream Team
Over a year ago, a friend and I imagined the rise of a Liberal Party dream team with Mar and Noynoy in the lead. I said it wasn’t possible because, personally, I gathered that Noynoy is not ready.
And yet, here we are. From where I stand, Noynoy is subject to the same process that Mar went through before I lay my stake on his candidacy a hundred per cent. Still, I am here because I want to ensure that my boss’s sacrifice and Noynoy’s potential do not go to waste.
I remain because I believe in Mar’s decision and in Noynoy’s opportunity. I believe that it’s about time we rise above ourselves, just as Mar did. I believe in the opportunity for each of us to pull a Mar Roxas: setting aside personal plans, personal pain, personal doubts and ego – and pave the way to ensure that this nation will FINALLY embrace its greatness.
As Noynoy goes through his process of discernment this weekend, so do most of us. And for what it’s worth, I’d like to share a quote I love which a friend lifted from a Jesuit: “Your calling is the intersection of your heart’s greatest desire and the world’s greatest need.”
Some people walk the earth and never know their purpose. I think My President already found his. I hope Noynoy also will.
This was never a tree that fell in the forest*
Many still doubt, many still wonder – but as a witness to the journey and the unfolding of history, it makes me feel privileged and honored to know that such great men (in Mar, Noynoy, Butch Abad, Chito Gascon, Jesse Robredo, Jun Abaya, Jovy Salonga, and others) still exist. It makes me wonder why so many people continue to doubt and deny that at this day and age, we deserve leaders like them.
During the weekend I was told that Mar said this was no longer about him, but about the country. Wherever we are now, and wherever we take this fight – it is no longer about us individually, but about us as a nation.
I do think that at this time, we Filipinos are being challenged to be politically mature: to vote for platform not person, to vote for a team not an individual, to vote with our rationality and not with our judgments, to vote for our future and not just for our present, and to vote because we love ourselves and we deserve better.
And as far as the so-called Opposition goes – we need to see clearly whether they are more of the same or for real change. As far as I’m concerned, a lot of those who brand themselves as Opposition are just of the same kind as the one they are opposing. The difference is, one is inside a palace while the rest are outside its gates (while one used to be inside, too).
And in the end…
F Sionil Jose, when I was privileged to meet him, said that “someone who has a sense of nation, someone who has some kind of loyalty to this nation – that is someone who will find the best way to be a Filipino.”
I have always believed that my being as a Filipino is a continuous process. Though I wish it weren’t so necessary, I felt the need to further mature politically this soon. At the heart of this change within me are our bosses – Mar and Butch, their families and mine, my colleagues and friends, the campaign advisers and even the detractors, and my advocacy org, YTRIP. I am grateful of all of them for strengthening my freedom, my commitment.
My broken heart will be whole again – and for sure, this is not the end but a beginning. Thanks to Mar, I assert that NOW is a great time to be a Filipino.
It’s a great time to be free.
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This is a personal piece and does not in any way represent the views of the organization.
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*Sorry, I can’t help it. It’s an internal thing
