*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
Sometimes I wonder how many good leaders the Philippines has
never discovered simply because nobody pointed a camera at them. Somewhere in
this country, there may be a mayor quietly transforming a municipality, a
governor honestly managing a province, a police officer reforming an
institution, a general who has spent decades protecting the Republic, an
academic whose ideas could improve government, or a career civil servant who
understands public administration better than many politicians. They work. They
serve. They accomplish things. But nobody knows their names.
“Senatoriable ’yan!” Another impressive appearance, and the person becomes
“vice presidentiable.” One dramatic national moment later, the same personality
is already being presented as “presidentiable.” And sometimes I ask myself: Ganito na lang ba talaga tayo pumipili ng magiging lider ng bayan?
Long before the 2028 elections arrive, familiar names will
again dominate surveys, advertisements, interviews, motorcades, and social
media. Some potential candidates will employ public relations practitioners,
political strategists, influencers, content creators, and image consultants to
transform ordinary activities into national headlines. Create the image. Find
the issue. Produce the moment. Repeat the name. Build the narrative. Suddenly,
a carefully manufactured political personality is presented to the nation as
its next savior.
Meanwhile, somewhere beyond the bright lights of political
publicity is a man who continues to work without demanding that the nation
applaud him. His name is General Ricardo F. De Leon.
I am writing this not to formally endorse his candidacy. I do not know whether he intends to run for the Senate in 2028. This is not a campaign announcement, nor is it an attempt to speak on his behalf. I write simply to remind the Filipino people that among more than 112 million Filipinos, there is a General De Leon quietly serving the Republic. His name deserves to be included in any serious discussion of possible senatorial choices in 2028.
General De Leon is not a product of one viral video, one
controversial hearing, or one dramatic television interview. His record was
built over decades, away from the noise and performance of electoral politics.
His career has crossed senior police service, public safety education,
university administration, institutional leadership, and national intelligence.
He rose through the Philippine National Police, served as officer in charge and
acting president of the Mindanao State University System, headed the Philippine
Public Safety College, served in the academic administration of Centro Escolar
University, and later became Director General of the National Intelligence
Coordinating Agency. That is not twenty minutes of nationwide television
exposure. That is a lifetime of institutional experience.
One of the strongest demonstrations of his leadership came when he was asked to assume responsibility for the Mindanao State University System in 2005. His appointment was not immediately welcomed. He entered MSU as a retired police general, a Christian, and an outsider to a university community with a unique history, culture, and identity. Students, faculty members, alumni, and other stakeholders expressed fears that the university would be militarized. Some questioned whether a former police official belonged in an academic institution.
General De Leon could have responded defensively. He could
have imposed authority through rank, command, and institutional power. But
leadership is not always about forcing people to obey. Sometimes it is about
entering a suspicious community, listening to its people, understanding their
fears, earning their confidence, and proving through action that one has come
not to conquer but to serve.
He was given the difficult responsibility of helping address
the university’s peace and order and security problems. MSU was not an ordinary
assignment. It was a national institution situated in an environment where
education, culture, religion, historical grievances, security, and the
aspirations of Mindanao intersected. His task was not merely to guard a campus.
It was to protect a university’s academic mission while helping restore
stability and institutional confidence.
He did not transform MSU into a military camp. Instead, he
demonstrated that discipline and consultation could coexist, that security and
academic freedom need not be enemies, and that a Christian former police
general could work with and earn the respect of a predominantly Muslim academic
community.
The opposition he initially encountered gradually gave way
to recognition of the difference he had made. Years later, retired General
Ramon J. Farolan in his newspaper column wrote of De Leon’s service at MSU under the moving title, “The Passerby Who Made a Difference.”
That description is powerful. A passerby does not remain
forever. He enters a place for a limited time, performs the responsibility
entrusted to him, leaves the institution more stable than he found it, and
moves on without claiming ownership of its achievements. General De Leon may
have entered MSU as an outsider whose appointment was questioned, but he left
behind the memory of a leader who helped restore stability, protected the
institution, and earned the respect of people who had initially doubted him.
He did not need to belong to the community by birth to
defend its welfare. He chose to belong through service.
That accomplishment reveals something deeper about his
qualifications for the Senate. It demonstrates that he can enter a divided
environment, manage resistance, understand cultural sensitivities, and
transform suspicion into cooperation. These are precisely the abilities needed
in a Senate often divided by ideology, political loyalty, personal interest,
and competing regional concerns.
Could somebody with such a background serve meaningfully in
the Senate? Certainly, his record deserves serious consideration. But ask
ordinary Filipinos about him. Many may not even recognize his name. Why? Hindi
maingay. Hindi palaging nagpapa interview. Hindi naghahanap ng camera. Hindi
araw araw nasa social media.
He does not appear obsessed with advertising himself. He
does not need a publicity stunt every day to prove his relevance. He seems to
understand that public service is not a television program and that national
security cannot be reduced to slogans, dance videos, or viral posts. While
others employ public relations machinery to make themselves appear larger than
their accomplishments, General De Leon has chosen the less glamorous path: to
work silently and allow his record to speak for him.
Unfortunately, records do not always speak loudly enough in
Philippine politics. Quiet competence has one terrible disadvantage. "It is
quiet."
In our electoral system, even the most qualified person can
remain invisible if nobody tells the public that he exists. A silent worker can
easily be buried beneath the noise created by wealthy political organizations,
famous family names, entertainment personalities, and candidates supported by
armies of online propagandists. Twenty or thirty years of service can be
overshadowed by twenty or thirty minutes of television exposure. That is why
General De Leon deserves to be noticed.
His professional experience is not a collection of
decorative credentials assembled for an election brochure. It represents
decades spent understanding institutions, human behavior, organizational
discipline, education, law enforcement, public safety, peacebuilding, and the
difficult responsibility of protecting the Republic.
As I previously discussed in my article, “NICA DirectorGeneral Ricardo F. De Leon and the Evolution ofIntelligence,” his approach to intelligence may be understood as something broader than
gathering secret information. It reflects an appreciation of intelligence as an
instrument of prevention, institutional integrity, education, public safety,
and nation building.
That depth of experience matters in the Senate. The Senate
does not merely need people who know how to deliver speeches, manufacture
quotable lines, or dominate a televised confrontation. It needs legislators who
understand how government institutions actually function. It needs people
capable of examining threats before they become national crises. It needs
leaders who can contribute meaningfully to discussions involving national
security, public safety, cybercrime, transnational crime, illegal drugs, corruption,
disinformation, foreign interference, education, peace and order, institutional
reform, Mindanao, and the West Philippine Sea.
On these matters, General De Leon would not enter the Senate
as a beginner. His qualifications and institutional experience compare
favorably with, and in several important fields may even exceed, those of some
incumbent senators. This is not intended to insult anyone. It is simply an
honest assessment of what he could bring to the institution.
If celebrities, political heirs, media personalities, and
individuals with far less government experience may be considered qualified to
seek a Senate seat, why should a seasoned leader in policing, education, public
safety, peacebuilding, institutional administration, and intelligence not be
given the same opportunity? Why should competence remain hidden merely because
it refuses to advertise itself?
In Philippine politics, name recall is political capital.
Familiarity can be converted into credibility, and credibility can eventually
become votes. This does not automatically make famous personalities qualified
or unqualified. It merely explains why highly competent but less visible
Filipinos struggle to enter the public’s political imagination.
The same phenomenon appears whenever a lawyer delivers an
impressive argument, a legislator creates a memorable confrontation, or a
personality becomes the center of a dramatic national event. Social media
explodes. Millions watch. Thousands share. Suddenly, “Senatoriable!”
But wait. What exactly did we measure? Eloquence? Courage?
Charisma? Toughness? Television presence? One impressive performance? These
qualities may matter, but they are not the same as governing.
For every brilliant lawyer appearing on television, there
may be hundreds of equally brilliant lawyers whose only disadvantage is that
nobody placed a camera before them. For every general who becomes famous
because of one controversy, there may be other generals who have spent decades
quietly building institutions and protecting the country.
General De Leon may not have the loudest voice, the most
aggressive political machinery, or the most dramatic public image. But perhaps
that is precisely why the country needs to look at him more closely. In a
nation exhausted by political performance, a quiet and disciplined worker can
offer a refreshing kind of leadership.
There are people who announce everything they intend to do.
There are also people who simply do the work. There are politicians who spend
enormous resources creating the image of competence. There are public servants
whose years of work have already established it. There are those who seek power
because they want to be seen. And there are those who deserve greater
responsibility precisely because they continued serving even when few people
were watching.
General Ricardo De Leon belongs to the second kind.
Of course, his qualifications should not exempt him from
public scrutiny. Should he decide to enter politics, the people must examine
his complete record, principles, policy positions, independence, and plans for
the country. Every aspiring senator must face the same democratic examination.
Recognition should never become blind admiration, just as criticism should
never become automatic rejection. But Filipinos cannot evaluate a person they
have never been allowed to notice.
Imagine someone who has spent decades serving government. No
manufactured controversy. No theatrical drama. No publicity stunt. No army of
influencers. No massive public relations machinery. Every morning, trabaho.
Every evening, uwi. Year after year. Then another person becomes viral on
Tuesday. By Friday, people are already talking about that person for the
Senate.
There is something profoundly wrong with a political culture
when being seen becomes more valuable than having served.
This creates a terrible incentive for aspiring politicians.
Magpapansin ka. Create controversy. Find an enemy. Produce content. Become
viral. Politicians become performers. Hearings become stages. Interviews become
auditions. Social media becomes the theater. Elections become casting calls for
the next Filipino political action hero.
But democracy is not an action movie. There is no two hour
ending where the bida defeats all the kontrabida and suddenly corruption
disappears, poverty ends, crime vanishes, and government begins functioning
perfectly.
Real governance is often boring. Budgets are boring.
Administration is boring. Policy implementation can be boring. Institution
building takes years. But these supposedly boring responsibilities are
precisely what make countries work. Sometimes, the person doing the most
important work is the person least interested in being photographed while doing
it.
That is why we need a different standard before 2028. Before
calling anyone senatoriable, vice presidentiable, or presidentiable, we should
ask what the person has actually accomplished, what institutions the person
improved, what difficult problems were solved, and how that person responded
when people resisted the leadership being offered. We should ask whether the
person can unite communities divided by religion, culture, politics, and
historical distrust. We should ask whether the person can build institutions
instead of merely building followers, whether integrity can survive money,
power, pressure, and temptation, and perhaps most importantly, whether the
person can continue leading when the cameras are turned off.
On the basis of these questions, General De Leon deserves a
place in the national conversation.
I am not asking the Filipino people to vote for him today.
There is no ballot before us, and there may not even be a declared candidacy. I
am asking only that we widen our field of vision. Beyond the political
billboards, publicity teams, rehearsed interviews, paid online campaigns, and
familiar surnames are Filipinos whose service deserves national attention.
General Ricardo F. De Leon is one of them.
He may be a quiet worker, but quietness must never be
mistaken for weakness. He may not advertise himself, but genuine competence
does not disappear merely because it is not constantly posted online. He may
remain hidden from the political spotlight, but a hidden gem does not lose its
value simply because many people have not yet discovered it.
At MSU, he entered as a questioned outsider and left as a
passerby who made a difference. In public safety education, he helped prepare
those entrusted with protecting the people. In intelligence, he continues to
work in a field where success is often measured precisely by the crises the
public never sees.
Among more than 112 million Filipinos, there is a General
Ricardo De Leon silently working for the Republic. He deserves to be noticed.
He deserves to be included among the possible senatorial choices for 2028.
And should he decide to accept the challenge, he deserves a
fair chance to present himself to the Filipino people, not as another product
of political publicity, but as a seasoned public servant whose life’s work may
already speak more powerfully than any campaign advertisement ever could.
The Philippines does not need another political one hit
wonder. It needs leaders whose competence was proven before they became famous,
whose integrity survives after they acquire power, and whose accomplishments
remain standing long after the cameras have been turned off.
Dear Reader,
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