WHEN two typhoons struck the country recently—first Rolly, then Ulysses—Vice President Leni Robredo quickly went to work. Her office started collecting much-needed relief goods for the displaced survivors, with the VP herself distributing these.
Her packages and boxes were plain, and did not carry any photos or markings that would remind beneficiaries who exactly came to their aid. That has never been the VP’s style, this lady who used to ride the provincial bus to go home to Naga. I don’t know her personally, but I’ve seen the good she has done.
She lives simply, tries valiantly to get all her daughters for a meal together at home, and goes around almost with no makeup on. But she works to the bone, especially during calamities, wading through thick mud in her rubber slippers or rough-and-tumble footwear, while moving about homes with their roofs torn off, and comforting families who have been through the worst their villages may have experienced.
Basically, Robredo acts like most mothers would—she tries to ease the pain and distress of those in trouble or facing life’s incredible challenges. She is the one who lends a hand, or embraces you, when you are in despair and have no one else to turn to.
For all of her excellent work, she is branded a slut.
“Ikaw, noong gabi, anong oras ka umuwi? Isang bahay ka lang ba, dalawang bahay? Nagtatanong lang ako. Kay congressman ka. Kaninong bahay ka natagalan?”, asked a very irked El Presidente last week.
Why is it any concern of the President where, and in whose house Robredo goes home to? What business is it for him to know these things and comment on them? We’re not talking about a teenager here—the Vice President is a grown-ass woman; she can go home anytime she wants to.
And what gall! Spreading unfounded rumors about an alleged liaison with a congressman. I won’t even mention his name here to protect his family. The Office of the President gets a P2.5 billion budget for supposed confidential and intelligence activities…and this is what they spend it on? Trying to find who the Vice President is sleeping with?
Of course, lewd and sexist remarks from the head of state aren’t new. He made the same accusation against Sen. Leila de Lima, threatening to show a supposed “X-rated” video of the senator. Which he never did of course. Basically because it never existed.
Having long been separated from her own husband, who has since remarried, De Lima was also pilloried by El Presidente and his allies, even linking her boyfriend/bodyguard in a drug scam they wanted to pin on her. (A few witnesses have since withdrawn their testimonies against her.)
But he has always been coarse. Perhaps a reason many were attracted to vote for him. He is their id, as one columnist-friend wrote in 2016. They like him because he says and does things their egos (and proper breeding and upbringing) would not allow them to do.
It’s a sick old world we live in when we allow dirty old men to use intelligent working women as their verbal punching bags for what they feel as imagined slights on their person. Being in power, as head of state, doesn’t give anyone license to tear down a person’s good name just to prove he is working for the country’s benefit.
As in most cases, actions speak louder than words. And Robredo showed who was actually doing the job. Proof? After El Presidente’s meltdown on TV, Robredo’s office received P50 million more in aid for typhoon survivors. It’s clear to donors who to trust.
I am glad the Vice President has now put on her boxing gloves and has decided to punch back. This is a woman wronged, and will fight back to protect her reputation and her work. “When a President is a misogynist, the conversation goes down to this level,” she tweeted, as the man in Malacañang ranted on TV. “Ito po ‘yung ginagawa namin gabi-gabi, nagpupuyat ilang linggo na para araw-araw, may madala lang na tulong sa mga nangangailangan,” while attaching a video of people in her office wrapping and organizing relief goods.
In an interview over a radio station this week, she underscored the reason why she decided to speak up against El Presidente’s 20-minute rant against her. “Kung sa pambabastos hahayaan ko iyon, ano iyong mensaheng binibigay ko? Na OK lang iyon? Na OK lang iyon dahil lalaki kayo? Na OK lang iyon dahil Pangulo kayo? Hindi dapat ganoon,” she stressed.
The problem with some men (and, yes, some women too unfortunately), the only way they can deal with their own personal incompetence and ineffectivity as a leader is to cut down a woman’s worth by slut-shaming her. Hurling insults at another person is the laziest form of criticism.
1 comment
du30 did not call her a slut.