“Lagi kitang pinagyayabang.”
Former vice president Leni Robredo met one of the students whose graduation she attended as a guest speaker in 2018 while she was at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) as a Hauser Leader.
Hillary Diane Andales, an aspiring Filipino astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), shared that she saw the former public official during a reception at the HKS on October 12.
“During the Q&A part of the program, I introduced myself and then asked her something along the lines of ‘During your tenure as VP, where did you see science and technology making a huge impact in the communities? How can scientists move science closer to the people?'” the student narrated on Facebook.
“Before she answered, she was like ‘[OMG], you’re Hillary? Ngayon lang nag-click sa akin! Everyone, this is Hillary from MIT. I spoke at her graduation where she was valedictorian. She has an inspiring story…’ and y’all at that point, [I] was just shaking and hyperventilating [because] ohmygod, she knows me?!?!?!” Andales exclaimed.
“Huhuhu and she called my story inspiring??? No ma’am, YOU’RE inspiring. Flex ko lang kasi this is a core memory,” the student added.
Andales then shared what Robredo told her in response to her question on science and communities.
The former vice president recounted an instance when her office had a dialogue with farmers and vendors to help them in their struggles.
“She closed her response by saying that we need more people in S&T. (Side note from me: we also need to support those who are ALREADY in S&T),” Andales said, referring to science and technology.
She also accompanied her post with pictures of her encounters with Robredo.
“How it started [versus] how it’s going,” Andales wrote with emojis of crying and weary faces and a growing heart.
Her post caught the attention of Robredo who commented that she was “happy” to have seen Andales for the second time.
“Lagi kitang pinagyayabang. Always super proud of you. I will be [at] MIT on Wednesday!!” the former public official said with a smiling face emoji.
Robredo was a guest of honor at the commencement exercises of the Philippine Science High School — Eastern Visayas campus in Palo, Leyte in May 2018.
In her speech, Robredo urged graduates to become inspirations of success amid hardships and to exalt “core values which make Filipinos admired by other nationalities.”
Andales was among the graduates who finished top of her class.
She earned a scholarship at MIT after winning the 2017 Breakthrough Junior Challenge, a worldwide science video competition where students explain the fundamental concepts in life sciences, physics and math.
Andales’ winning entry discussed Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which beat 11,000 other entries from 178 countries.
Meanwhile, Robredo is in the United States as one of the invited Hauser Leaders for HKS’s Center for Public Leadership for its fall semester this year.
RELATED: What is a Hauser Leader? Leni Robredo joins distinguished leaders at Harvard
Hauser Leaders are a group of high-profile leaders and practitioners from public, non-profit and private sectors who provide lectures and engage with students and other members of the Harvard community.
They are described as “living examples of principled and effective public leadership.”
Among Robredo’s lectures include populism through institutionalized disinformation.
