Former vice president Leni Robredo’s relationship with former president Fidel V. Ramos went beyond the realm of politics as she remembered him as a “personal friend” who had always supported her political endeavors.
Robredo posted on her Facebook page about Ramos’ passing.
“Arrived Manila with the sad news of FVR’s passing. Our family mourns his death and remembers what his Presidency meant in the post dictatorship Presidency,” she said in a post on late Sunday night, July 31.
The former vice president was in Turkey for a week with family for a vacation.
She shared that her late husband, former Interior secretary and Naga City mayor Jesse Robredo, was a “strong supporter” of Ramos and became even President of the League of Cities during Ramos’ term.
Jesse, she said, was the baptismal godfather to Patrick, the former president’s grandson. Robredo herself was Patrick’s wedding godmother.
READ: Farewell, FVR
“During the 2016 election and during my Vice Presidency, I was able to visit him a number of times,” she shared.
“He was also very vocal with his support all the time. Patrick sent me a video of FVR, in his sickbed, pledging his support for me during the last election,” Robredo added, also reposting a photo of her family with Ramos in 1994.
That post was first made in February 2016, when she was running for vice president.
Robredo shared that she visited Ramos in 2016 to ask for his support, to which the former chief executive answered, “You’ve always had it. You didn’t even have to come.”
Ramos was chairman of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD), the party under which incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte run and won and which formally endorsed the presidential bid of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The former president, who died at age 94 on Sunday, July 31, did not make public his endorsement.