Former Senator RAUL ROCO dies

[FK]

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the truly great one's are being left in the sidelines while those with ulterior motives gets to run the country.....

yeah sad but true... I hope dili nata sige og pangita og lesser evil, mangita ta og good.

rest in peace mr. roco, at least naka pahuway na ka sa hugawng politika.

[jeppoy]

just heard bout the news yesterday...sayang...

[neirbe]

sad news indeed. I am guilty for having voted for erap before because of a religion pushing us to...

[riseendreev]

a man of honor, valor and nobility... a great man indeed.. my condolence, a sad day to Philippine politics and to Filipinos.

[**julliene**]

my president...tsk tsk...

[darkwing]

Editorial : Sense of the possible

First posted 01:18am (Mla time) Aug 07, 2005
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the August 7, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

View full-size editorial cartoon

EX-SENATOR Raul Roco, who passed away on Friday, did not leave the scene like an Old Testament prophet, unhonored in his own country. From his youth, he had received the grateful recognition of the various communities he served, expressed in diverse forms: academic honors, unqualified professional success, an outstanding lawmaking career, untold political capital.

And yet there remains a sense that the country he served did not quite give him the final recognition he deserved. This sense, of course, is based on his two unsuccessful runs for the presidency, on the notion that his defeat was ultimately the nation's loss.

It is worth noting that, in the outpouring of praise from all sides of the political divide, the tributes from the younger politicians have been stamped by a deep imprint of what-might-have-beens. A fellow Bicolano,
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Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., said that if history would judge Roco the "best president this country never had, no one will contest such a judgment." At the other end of the political spectrum, Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casi¤o echoed this view: Roco was "probably the most qualified president the country never had."

These are remarkable testimonials, considering that history's list of highly qualified candidates for president includes Claro M. Recto, Raul Manglapus and Jovito Salonga.

They are all the more remarkable coming from the country's younger leaders.

The older members of the political class have not held back on their praise for Roco. But it is in the language used by Andaya, Casiño, et al. that the sense of unfulfilled potential is strongest, and at its most plaintive.

Why is this so?

In part, the tribute is a function of the very language they used; the praise may have been suggested by the phrase.

But the tribute is also a function of their youth; they were not around when Recto and Lorenzo Tañada and Manglapus tilted at the windmills of Philippine politics. Roco's example may have made a stronger impression because it was an experience they lived through.

But in greater part, the tribute is a reflection of Roco's own appeal: He drew the young, understood them, spoke their language.

We do not mean that he spoke in rap or wrote in "textese." We mean that he appealed to the idealism, the sense of the possible, that animates the young. His last campaign theme, offering "new hope," was political sentimentalism; but it was political sentimentalism with a specific demographic in mind.

It helped that his appeal to idealism was backed by a reputation for competence, in his law practice and in government service, and for wit.

These three virtues-idealism, competence, intelligence—all came together in an iconic episode during the Estrada impeachment trial. Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, a former judge, had insinuated that a witness, a young lawyer who had left a job at one law firm for another with lower pay, was somehow in the wrong. "The normal reaction is to accept the higher salary," Santiago sang. Roco used his turn to ask the witness to defend, not only the lawyer on the witness stand, but all lawyers. He asked questions that allowed the witness to say the truth, which is that money was not the only consideration. Then he turned around and smiled: "The law is not a business but a noble profession."

In a sense, he owed everything to that profession. His work ethic was shaped by the brutal realities of lawyering, Philippine-style. As many of those who worked for him have said, he did his homework, and drove himself and his staff hard.

He had his shortcomings, of course. He was not much of a coalition builder; for him, politics was not so much addition as geometry. He believed that a single man with Archimedes' lever could move the world. But in Congress, and in the Senate, and in the Department of Education, the reality is that no lever can ever be long enough.

This shortcoming was felt most in his presidential campaigns, which lacked the network and the resources that a Senate slate of equally impressive candidates would have made available. The outpouring of praise since Friday is thus doubly poignant; if these politicians had supported him then, perhaps, his fate would have been different. Eulogies are wasted on the dead.

[mAlD|tO]

yeaah i voted for him last election..he may rest in peace...

[websniper]

Ang kamatayon ni kanhi senador Raul Roco mao untay makapukaw natong mga Pilipino kung giunsa nato pagusik-usik ang kahigayunan sa pagpili sa maayong lider sa atong nasod....

Adios and So Long Raul......

[cALai_aDiE]

May his soul rest in peace....

[darkwing]

I kinda like this viewpoint from the Inquirer...

First posted 01:06am (Mla time) Aug 09, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
I remember that one of the debates in Roco’s camp during the elections was whether to accept “donations” from people like Lucio Tan. Some believed he should, not just to improve his financial position but his psychological projection -- he was being backed by “wise money.” Roco refused, though Tan has roots in Naga City as well. Those donations do not come free, he said, they carry with them more strings than are needed to tie up Florante to a tree in the woods. His position was better to lose with a light heart than to win with a heavy burden.

I remember as well that yet another debate in his camp was the wisdom of fielding Hermie Aquino and the people who eventually filled up his senatorial slate. Though Hermie was an Aquino, his detractors said, his name did not ring a bell. Neither did Aksyon’s senatorial candidates. Roco’s position was that better lesser known lights than well-known trapos. Better to lose fighting the good fight than to win peddling the bad cause.

And I remember that the most critical debate in his camp was whether he should continue to run or not after he came back from the United States when his cause seemed lost. When his supporters had lost heart and the voters were turning away from the propaganda that sick presidents were not good for the country. Roco refused to quit, arguing that, true enough, sick presidents were bad for the country, but there was sickness and there was sickness. Some were sick only in the body, others were sick in the mind. Presidents who were sick in the body but sound in the mind cured a sick country. Presidents who were sound in the body but sick in the mind only made the country sicker.

Roco reposed his faith instead in the people. We had no end of conversations when I would argue before him that this country, more than America, qualified for Mencken’s savage barb that “Nobody yet lost a buck underestimating the popular taste.” Which was true most of all of elections. He insisted on carrying his campaign on a high plane, based on ideas, scorning the song-and-dance routine. He kept telling me that the Filipino voter was not stupid, and that this voter could be convinced to make the right choice given the compelling logic of survival. He was unshakeable in that faith. He reposed his faith in particular in the youth, whom he truly believed was the hope of this seemingly hopeless country. You can’t lose, he said, with the youth behind you.

I'm proud to say I supported you my dear President 'till the end.....