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Just like everyone else, I have been following the nascent tennis career of Alex Eala. Amid all the controversies and rifts around us, Alex seems to be the perfect unifying force for a nation in need of heroes. This was in full display in her heartbreaking loss during the finals of the Lexus Eastbourne Open when she failed to capture her first Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) title despite holding four championship points. Yes, she shone brightest not in victory but in a crushing defeat. That is why I know she will succeed.

I have had many conversations with the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago; some of them serious, colloquies as she would call them, some of them very casual. We usually talked over a cup of coffee or over dinner but the one thing constant is that any conversation with her was engaging and meaningful. Many people were impressed by her grandiloquence, and rightfully so because when she spoke you would often find yourself looking for a dictionary. But in my intimate chats with her, I have been more amazed by her mind. Her mental acuity is as sharp as her rhetorical virtuosity.

Her name was Aisa. When I was still in the Senate, she sent me a letter explaining her horrific ordeal in Jordan as a migrant worker. Her first employer did not feed her for two days and when she got sick she was returned to her agency. The agency then “detained” her inside the toilet for five days until they found a second employer. Her ordeal was about to worsen as her second employer attempted to molest her. She screamed and cried and ran to seek help only to fall down the stairs injuring her leg. “Sana po tulungan niyo akong makauwi,” she pleaded in her letter.