NAGA
CITY—Eulogizing Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo on the
final day of national mourning before his interment here on Tuesday, President
Aquino said that the secretary had joined the pantheon of national heroes
looking after his countrymen.
“Jesse
is already in the ranks of heroes watching over us from heaven, and he is
giving us the strength to continue with their good deeds. So let us stop
weeping; instead, let us give thanks,” the President said in a speech delivered
in Filipino that elicited repeated applause from the crowd at Minor Basilica of
Our Lady of Peñafrancia, where the concelebrated requiem Mass was held.
“For the
brief time that he was here in this world, we were the ones blessed to be in
the company of Jesse Manalastas Robredo,” said Mr. Aquino, who wore a black arm
band as a sign of mourning.
“Goodbye,
Jesse. In behalf of the nation, thank you very much,” the President concluded.
The
funeral rites came 10 days after Robredo, 54, and the two pilots of a Piper Seneca
died in a plane crash at sea in Masbate.
In his
eulogy, Mr. Aquino summed up the gravity of Robredo’s death. “His family lost a
husband and father; the nation lost a trustworthy and efficient leader; I lost
a brother in the official family of the Cabinet who was an ally in our
crusades, and a party mate. I lost a good friend,” he said.
Robredo
had served for 19 years as mayor of this city before joining the Aquino
administration in 2010.
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
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