23/11/2025
[Morning Coffee Thoughts] An Open Letter to Mayor Leni Robredo
Dear Mayor Leni,
I need to tell you about a memory that has stayed with me for decades, and then I need to ask you something that I know is unfair to ask.
It was sometime in the 90s, and I was working in Naga City. I encountered your husband, Jesse, in what I can only describe as one of those moments that reshapes how you think about leadership. He was wearing a sando, shorts, and tsinelas—nothing that signaled power or position. He was simply there, talking to passers-by, to ordinary people going about their day. Me included.
We had a quick chat. I don't remember all the words we exchanged, but I remember everything else. I remember his ease, the way he made you feel like you mattered, like your thoughts were worth his time. I stayed for a few minutes after our conversation, just watching him.
He moved through that street like he belonged to it, like he was part of the fabric of the place rather than someone above it.
And I realized, standing there: this is what leadership looks like. To be with the people. To walk among them. To speak their language. To feel what they feel.
I have carried the highest respect for your husband ever since that day. When I learned of his passing, I felt like I had lost a friend, even though we had only spoken once, briefly, on a street in Naga more than a decade earlier. That is the mark he left on people. That is the kind of leader he was.
And Ma'am, you carry that same quality. I have watched you over the years, and I see it in the way you work, in the way you speak, in the way you refuse to become someone else just because the cameras are on. You make governance feel human. You make people feel seen.
That is why what I am about to ask feels so heavy.
Please reconsider your decision not to run for president.
I know what I am asking. I know that Naga needs you—the flooding, the infrastructure, the systems that need rebuilding. Naga is where Jesse left his mark, where his memory lives in the streets and the hearts of the people he served. I understand why you chose to be there. I understand that there is redemption in returning to what was, and restoration in honoring what was lost.
But Ma'am, we also need you. And I say this with a trembling hand, because I know how much you have already given.
You have already proven that you are willing to endure the unendurable. You ran for president in 2022 knowing the odds were stacked against you, knowing that the machinery of this country would work against you. You did it anyway, because you believed that the Philippines deserved better. You received 15 million votes. Fifteen million Filipinos looked at you and said: yes, this person should lead us. That is not a small thing.
What terrifies me—and I think it should terrify all of us—is that you would not do it again. Not because you cannot, but because you should not have to. Because it is unfair. Because this country does not deserve to ask more of you than it already has.
But here is the thing, Ma'am: we are running out of people like you.
We claim to want change, yet we reward those who traffic in lies.
We say we value integrity, yet we protect those who steal and kill.
We speak of good governance in coffee shops and at family dinners, then we vote for strongmen and demagogues.
You know this. You lived this.
You were vice president, and yet you were harassed, undermined, questioned at every turn.
You ran for president, and they called you a puppet and a communist and every name under the sun. You received death threats. Your family received threats. And still, you served. Still, you believed.
Still, you tried.
So why would I ask you to do this again?
Because I am terrified of what happens if people like you stop trying.
I am terrified that we will be left with only the ruthless, the unprincipled, and those who will sell the country to the highest bidder.
I am terrified that the institutions we fought for will be stripped away, that history will be rewritten to hide the crimes of those in power, that corruption will become so normal our children will not even recognize it as wrong.
I am terrified that we will be left with ourselves, diminished and complicit, wondering when we stopped believing that things could be different.
I know that no one person can fix what is broken in this country. I know that even you, with your intelligence and your integrity and your capacity for work, cannot undo years of decay in a single term. I know that.
But you know something that others do not: how to be in power without poisoning yourself with it.
How to lead with humility.
How to be transparent about what you do not know.
How to build systems that make corruption harder.
How to make people believe that good governance is not just a dream but a possibility.
And Ma'am, even a small amount of that—even slightly less corruption, even slightly more transparency, even slightly more hope—that would change everything. That would give us all permission to keep trying.
I know that sounds naive. I know that sounds impossible when the noise is so deafening that the millions of us who believe in you can barely be heard above the roar of trolls and liars and people who profit from your pain. But there are millions of us. You said once that "if we fight right, there's a chance." I have held onto those words. I hold onto them still.
I am not asking you to sacrifice yourself on the altar of our mediocrity.
I am not asking you to martyr yourself for a nation that has not always deserved your service.
I am asking you to give us another chance to prove that we can be better.
I am asking you to trust that there are millions of us—even if we are silent, even if we are defeated, even if we do not know how to make our voices heard above the noise—who believe in what you are trying to build.
I will not lie to you and say that the journey will be easy. It will not.
You will be called things that make you want to close yourself off from the world.
You will question whether any of this matters.
You will have moments—many of them—where the cost seems too high. I am certain of this because I have watched you go through it before.
But what I am asking you to consider is that the cost of not trying might be higher still.
If you run—if you stand there and say what needs to be said, if you refuse to play their game, if you show us again what leadership grounded in service looks like—then maybe, just maybe, enough of us will wake up.
Maybe we will remember what it feels like to have a leader who does not lie to us, who does not steal from us, who does not treat the presidency like a family heirloom to be passed around.
Maybe we will remember that we deserve better, and that better is possible.
You could show us how to rebuild institutions gutted by corruption.
You could show us how to restore transparency in government spending.
You could show us how to create systems where the poor are not left to fend for themselves while the powerful enrich their families.
You could show us, in concrete and measurable ways, that governance does not have to be theater—it can be work, real work, that changes real lives.
I think about your husband often. I think about that day in the 90s when he was just there, among his people, wearing tsinelas and talking to strangers like they were friends.
That image has stayed with me because it represented something I feared we had lost in this country: the idea that leaders could be servants, that power could be wielded with gentleness, that you could be extraordinary without pretending to be someone you are not.
Your husband knew what leadership looked like. So do you.
The Philippines needs to remember. We need you to show us again.
I know you are tired. I know that the fight has taken something from you that cannot easily be replaced.
I know that stepping back into that arena means opening yourself to losses that cut to the bone.
But I also know that you are possibly the only person in this country right now who has the moral authority, the intellectual capacity, and the spiritual strength to do this.
There are millions of us who will stand with you.
You have not been abandoned.
We have been waiting for you to give us something to fight for again.
Please, find your courage one more time. Please, give us the chance to prove that we can fight right this time.
With deep respect and an aching hope,
A Believer in What You Are Building
