Senator Risa Hontiveros: Mother Courage
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California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Senator Risa Hontiveros (Source: Akbayan Facebook)
Coming from a week of high-profile interrogation of Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo – a process that would have taken just a few hours had the mayor not hedged and lied, opening up multiple hornet’s nests regarding the recently raided Philippine Offshore Gaming Operation (POGO) in her jurisdiction – “Sen Risa” flew to the US for 12 days of speeches, interviews and meet-ups with Filipino communities in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Senator Risa Hontiveros at a Senate hearing (Source: Facebook)
Then she rushed home for another Executive Session, the second, with Philippine intelligence agencies who have confidential insider information about POGOs, in addition to other public appearances. She also expects to do an ocular inspection of yet another suspicious POGO. All this frenzy despite the Senate being in recess until mid-July.
Behind closed doors, however, is her all-important task of rebuilding the political opposition – the real one, not the fake opposition claimed by ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, which Sen Risa dismisses as just an attempt at a power grab. This real opposition includes her party, Akbayan, in alliance with the Liberal Party, Magdalo (the party of former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV), KANP (Katipunan ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino of former Senator Bam Aquino), the kakampinks (the informal name of the 15 million-strong force that supported former Vice President Leni Robredo in her losing presidential bid in 2022) and other pro-democracy groups who choose to cast their lot on the electoral system.
This collective opposition got a drubbing in the 2022 national election, with Sen Risa as the only survivor for the Senate, and just barely (she was #11 of the 12 winners). As one of her last acts as Vice President, Leni Robredo passed the baton as leader of the opposition to Sen Risa.
From then on it became the senator’s mandate to restore and reignite flagging hopes and enthusiasm, heal fissures among the stakeholders, and organize, organize, organize. With her activist background and continued advocacy for the power of an organized, enlightened citizenry, Sen Risa has her work cut out for her. Her number one goal at this point: to put together a winnable opposition slate for the Senate for the 2025 midterm elections.
Definitely easier said than done. With “winnable” as the operative word, the task of identifying possible candidates and convincing/cajoling them to embark on a blistering national campaign and its concomitant downsides (threats, trolls, health gambles, a willingness to submit to evisceration through lies, etc.) requires astuteness and persuasiveness, and the patience of Job. And this is just step one on the steep ladder toward victory.
Last year, during her visit to the same US cities, Sen Risa was more ambitious. She wanted to put up a full Senate slate of 12, she said. This year she has tempered her goal to six or “even less will be okay too.” This is quite an honest admission of a hard reality, especially for one as optimistic and forward-thinking as the lady senator.
Senator Hontiveros at the San Francisco Public Library Forum (Source: Akbayan Facebook)
Senator Hontiveros with the San Francisco Bay Area Filipinos (Source: Akbayan Facebook)
In her characteristic gentle feistiness however, she assures her audience composed of those who voted against the BBM-Sara Duterte tandem in 2022 that the opposition is alive and will fight with everything it has got to elect more senators and other public officials. A strong and vociferous opposition after all is a vital component of popular democracy and a necessary watchdog for the excesses of the Marcos II administration. Left unsaid was that a successfully entrenched opposition will define her next moves as she hits her term limit as senator in 2028.
Risa Hontiveros: How far will her fierce dissenting voice in the Senate take her? (rappler.com)
A New Face
For the last eight years, starting with the ascent of Rodrigo Duterte as president in 2016, the Philippine political opposition has assumed a new face. The high-profile characters are women. Leila de Lima, the fiery, unapologetic, unbroken human rights lawyer and erstwhile senator paid the price of Duterte’s misogyny and cruelty – seven years in jail on trumped up charges. Her accusers have all recanted and two of her three cases have been dropped; she is out on bail for the third one, expected likewise to be dismissed.
Senator Hontiveros with Senator Leila De Lima (left) (Source: Sunstar | Third Anne Peralta Malonzo)
VP Leni Robredo was the calm, steady worker bee who managed to run the very meagerly funded Office of the Vice President so efficiently, it gained an ISO certification for its entire six years and the highest audit rating from the Commission on Audit (COA) for three years. [Her effective handling of the Office of the VP puts the lie to current VP Sara Duterte’s assertion that she needs half a billion pesos of confidential funds and a security contingent of 400 armed personnel.]
Robredo’s 2022 presidential bid was historic in its scope and enthusiasm. Despite being a latecomer in the game (she decided to run only six months before elections), she was able to garner gigantic crowds to her rallies where creative volunteerism (not money) was the engine that moved her bid forward and resulted in 15 million votes. Not enough to win but enough to make her a very important cog in the opposition machine. Will she run again for national office? The answer is still up in the air. Right now, Robredo’s focus is her nonprofit Angat Buhay which operationalizes her long-standing advocacy of lifting the masses from poverty.
And now there’s Sen Risa – articulate, soft-spoken, feisty, when necessary, kind and diplomatic, always optimistic and hopeful. Despite being a long-time activist (“since high school”) going against the conventional political currents, despite being a young widow shielding her brood of four from the savagery of the public eye and being all-in in the murk of Philippine politics for two decades, she has no rough edges. Or at least none that she shows publicly. Which is quite amazing because Philippine politics in its current iteration is constant combat, and combatants are expected to be hardened and sharpened in the process of survival.
Risa Hontiveros Man at His Best 2022 Interview (esquiremag.ph)
How has Sen Risa been spared the degradation of character that is the wont of politicians everywhere? A part of it may be her Catholic education (St. Scholastica, Ateneo) that exposed her to good manners and a fatalism borne of faith. And then there’s the possible genetic memory of belonging to an illustrious lineage: as stated in Wikipedia, her grandfather Jose Hontiveros, a lawyer and jurist, was a Senator of the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands, a delegate to the 1934 Constitutional Convention which drafted the 1935 Constitution, and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Third Republic of the Philippines. Her grandmother was a violinist. An aunt Daisy Hontiveros-Avellana is a National Artist for Theater; an uncle Fr. Eduardo Hontiveros, SJ, was a composer/musician who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit; another aunt, Nita Hontiveros-Lichauco, founded the Philippine Animal Welfare Society. Risa’s cousins Jose Maria Avellana and Ma-an Hontiveros are well-known performers and TV personalities, just like her younger sister, Pia, a broadcast journalist, who followed Risa’s earlier career path as a TV journalist and anchor.
It's easy to trace her confidence and comfort in speaking to the public. Ever since she was cast as one of the Von Trapp children in the Philippine production of The Sound of Music when she was 14 (a production that also starred Lea Salonga, Monique Wilson and Raymond Lauchengco, among others), Risa was hooked on theater performance.
In college, she played the lead role as Sandy in Grease, the popular musical, where her character evolved from being sweet and innocent to feisty and no-nonsense, much like how she has evolved in the political arena. These stage experiences and her early exposure to mass actions beginning with protests against the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and the anti-Marcos rallies following the 1983 assassination of Ninoy Aquino led her to be articulate and clear-headed about her progressive politics. The activist became the student leader who later became a champion of the oppressed and a lawmaker true to her commitment to human rights, social justice, and democracy.
Mercifully, while she imbibed the strength of conviction of her fellow progressive activists, she didn’t mirror the shrill, angry, and uncompromising rhetoric, thus making her a likeable and effective agent of change, acceptable to everyone. Well, except the Dutertes.
The Love Story
The many write-ups about Risa online would often mention her late husband, Francisco Baraquel Jr., a military man, to whom she was married for 15 years until his sudden death in 2005 from a heart attack due to severe asthma. She raised their four children as a single mom while simultaneously fulfilling her duties as an Akbayan party-list representative in Congress, her first political office.
Risa Hontiveros with husband Frank Baraquel, Jr. on their wedding day. (Source: senrisahontiveros.com)
What the write-ups miss is their love story itself and the profound influence it had on Risa’s worldview as a stateswoman and political leader.
It all started innocently enough: a bored cadet of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) perusing the yearbook of St. Scholastica high school in search of someone he could write letters to. He wrote to three he found interesting, one of them being Risa.
Already in college at Ateneo when she got the letter, Risa was impressed by the six pages of well-written thoughts and humor she read. Normally, she would just throw away letters from guys she didn’t know, but this one she kept, intending to respond with thanks. She tucked the letter in her drawer and forgot about it until 11 months later. When she wrote back, he had forgotten her, so she had to do the reminding.
Cavalier Frank Baraquel was a standout in the PMA class of 1986. He was editor of The Corps, the academy’s student publication, and was the class humorist traditionally assigned to write the humor column called “Uncle Bobo.”
Despite the distance between Baguio (where PMA is) and Manila, their relationship thrived through letters and occasional visits. As The Corps editor, Cadet Baraquel would come down to Manila for press work. When the EDSA People Power Revolt erupted in February 1986, he was in Manila. With Risa, he joined the crowds at EDSA; at the time, they were not yet formally a couple, but close.
Before he returned to Baguio, he invited Risa to be his “kaydet girl,” his partner for the traditional Ring Hop, a significant tradition of presenting the PMA bull ring to graduating cadets. It wasn’t the first time he tried to get her to be his date, but she always said no because “Marcos would be there.” In 1986, his graduation year and hers, she finally said yes. “Pasalamat ka kay Cory (be thankful to Cory),” she kidded him.
They married four years later, in 1990, when Frank Baraquel was already a First Lieutenant in the then-Philippine Constabulary (the predecessor of the current Philippine National Police).
During that time of civilian distrust of the military, did she get some grief from her kasamas (comrades)? Yes, Risa said, but eventually her friends became his friends, and his friends became hers.
She learned a lot from her husband and their marriage, she intimates. “I realized that people who are ‘enemies’ can connect as human beings, that institutions take a long time to change but personal inputs can help push change, maybe over time.”
Such a “big tent” view of the world has served her well as a political leader. As she consolidates the disparate elements of the opposition, she uses the term as a catch-all title for her unity goals.
It also helps her maintain a cordial working relationship with Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, her husband’s “mistah” (PMA classmate), who certainly wouldn’t march in lockstep with her stances and advocacies. But on one Senate investigation, they worked together even if they recognized that they’re polar opposites. “We still call each other Mistah,” which, as PMAyers know, is as strong a bond of respect as any.
Legislative Wins
The Senate Legislative Digital Resources identifies Senator Hontiveros as the “first socialist woman Senator of the Philippines,” an eyebrow-raising tag that could raise the hackles of red-taggers. HONTIVEROS, RISA | Senate of the Philippines Legislative Reference Bureau
A look at the 25 bills that Sen Risa has authored and passed in her eight years in the Senate affirms her commitment to causes that benefit women, children, seniors, people with disabilities (PWD), LGBTQIs, indigenous peoples and those in the fringes of society. Not for her the renaming of streets and buildings, or economic measures that benefit mainly the rich and powerful.
Some of them are landmark legislation. The Philippine Mental Health Law marks the first time a comprehensive framework for handling and treating mental health conditions is defined by law. The Universal Health Care Act, the Mandatory Philhealth Coverage for persons with disabilities, the Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act, the Anti-Hospital Deposit Law, and the Cheaper and Quality Medicines Law ensures easier and affordable access to health care for everyone.
For children, mothers and families, Sen Risa has authored and passed expanded maternity leave (to 105 days), a successful economic ayuda (aid) to impoverished families through conditional cash transfers (4Ps), assistance for solo parents, nutrition for the first 1,000 days of life, among others.
And for those facing sexual harassment, gender bias and online sexual abuse and exploitation, Sen Risa has you covered too.
Bills that are in the pipeline include a universal pension program for seniors, including dual citizens living in the Philippines. Another dream law of hers is pension portability for overseas Filipinos who want to return to the motherland for good, a longstanding aspiration of many who have worked and contributed to their host countries’ pension and retirement programs and hope to be able to enjoy those benefits (like Medicare) in the Philippines. This, however, requires complicated bilaterial agreements with the host countries and is not expected to shape up into actual legislation anytime soon.
Close to fruition is her bill that will provide maternity cash aid to pregnant women in the informal economy, meaning those that are self-employed, under-employed, or are hired contractually by job. This one she is personally invested in.
The high-profile bills that the Senate will tackle very soon have her imprint; she has spent years arguing and refining the provisions to make them passable. The Divorce Law, which already has the signatures of members of her committee, is generating intense public discussions, but the new Senate President Chiz Escudero has voiced his non-support. However, he assured her that he will allow a “conscience vote,” which is enough for Sen Risa, whose minimum ask is a fair hearing at presenting the bill before the entire Senate.
The SOGIE (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression) bill, which has languished in legislative limbo for more than two decades, still faces rough sailing in the Senate, although Risa is hopeful that there will be a resolution before a new set of senators are elected in 2025.
Despite being a long-time activist (“since high school”) going against the conventional political currents, despite being a young widow shielding her brood of four from the savagery of the public eye, and being all-in in the murk of Philippine politics for more than a decade, she has no rough edges.
On the Personal Side
For two decades, Risa Hontiveros has worked tirelessly – heroically even – in the Philippine Congress and Senate on behalf of the sectors she has pledged to lift and protect. Her success, however, came with a high personal cost.
Her husband’s sudden death shortly after she assumed office made her a single mom to four young children. Dealing with grief also meant moving on with life, as a parent; breadwinner; manager of time, resources, and emotions; and as legislator.
“My comrades at Akbayan would also adjust my schedule as much as possible so that I could attend my kids’ events. I used to tell myself: ‘Political tasks can be delegated; but only I can parent my children.’”
Now that her children are grown up and following their chosen paths, the active parenting aspect of her life has eased.
But then came the harassment during Duterte’s time. At one point, Risa was threatened with jail time, like Senators Trillanes and de Lima, when she dared question the legality and morality of the murderous “war on drugs” and actively defended the victims’ families. She stood her ground, just as she never wavered in exposing the “pastillas” scam – bribery involving the illegal entry of Chinese citizens into the country – for which she got death threats.
Her public interpellation last year of VP Sara Duterte on the latter’s demand for gargantuan confidential funds for the Department of Education and the Office of the Vice President once again earned her the ire of the Duterte loyalists. The deluge of threats and insults starting from the VP herself and magnified by some vloggers and online trolls would have made a regular person fold. But Sen Risa is obviously made of sterner stuff.
Asked if she still dreams of returning to performing in theater, as she has mentioned in one interview, her answer was unequivocal: “Always. That’s where I’m going next after the Senate.”
What if you become president?
She laughs heartily. “Maybe I should say, after politics, then.”
