415-5455 / 0918-9120137
One facet of the character of President Cory Aquino which to my mind stands out is her respect for and capacity to tolerate differing views and opposing partisan positions.
In early 1992, I visited her in Malacañang to ask for the release of a badly needed additional P5-M for the completion of the Tabaco National High School Sports Complex. She ordered the funding release despite a memorandum form the then Executive Secretary Frank Drilon that my district had already received its share of budgetary releases.
But this is peripheral. The point is we talked for about 30 to 45 minutes and she never even hinted that I consider shifting my support to her anointed Presidential candidate Fidel Ramos. She knew I was a diehard Ramon Mitra supporter.
She respected my political persuasion and did not attempt to change it with the budgetary support she had just given to my district, or the fact that she once appointed me as her Undersecretary of the Department of Budget and Management shortly after the EDSA People Power Revolution.