Growing up in the Philippines and training as a paralegal, Antonio Gerona could never have imagined that his sister would one day become the country’s vice president.
The Vice President of the Philippines, Leni Robredo, is a human rights lawyer who is now running for the presidency.
“I just sent him a text message and he told me that the election results are very fast and that Marcos is winning. I asked him how he was and he didn’t answer,” Gerona said from his home in northeast Calgary on Monday morning.
He moved to Calgary 9 years ago from the Philippines.
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Gerona said his sister has run a voluntary grassroots campaign against Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He is the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who was ousted in a popular revolution, and Imelda Marcos, a senator in the archipelago country whose past generosity it became embodied in his shoe collection.
The Marcos dictatorship that ended in 1986 included years of martial law and human rights violations.
An unofficial tally showed that Marcos Jr., popularly known as “Bongbong,” had passed the 27.5 million votes needed for a majority, setting the stage for an unthinkable return to rule by the Marcos family 36 years after his death. humiliating retreat into exile during a “people power” uprising.
“I feel sad for the Filipino people. I hope she doesn’t do what her father did to the Philippines,” Gerona said.
But the country and Filipinos in Calgary are divided.
“What I’ve noticed is the generation gap,” said Michael Juarez of Alberta’s Philippine Festival Council.
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“There is the older generation that believes that the Philippines is a great nation and has the power to become a great nation again, and believes that during the time of the Marcos, we were respected, that we were recognized as a country. So I think they really expect him to come back,” Juarez said.
Some Filipinos do not believe that Ferdinand Jr. is to blame for what happened while his father was in power.
Gerona said that Robredo is seen as an outsider because she does not come from one of the Philippines’ political dynasties.
Calgarian Antonio Gerona (left) with his sister, former Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo, in an undated photo.
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“Knowing my sister, she’s a very strong woman but she’s also a fighter, so I’m trying to see if she still has a few tricks up her sleeve,” Gerona said with a laugh.
Robredo urged his supporters to continue fighting for the truth.
“We have many more things to fight for. Don’t let go,” she said at a news conference.
“Stand up. Insist on the truth. It took time to build the structures of lies. We have time and opportunity to fight and dismantle this.”
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Before the election, Robredo told Gerona that if she was unsuccessful in her bid to become president, she planned to come and visit Calgary before deciding on her next move.
This weekend Gerona helped organize a rally in Calgary in support of her sister.
Gerona, who works at Bow Valley College, said her sister followed in her father’s footsteps by studying law.
Gerona said that Robredo had never intended to enter politics until her husband, an active politician, died in a plane crash in 2013.
–with Reuters files
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