Digong what? Leni reads ‘Digong Dilaw’ to school kids in Tondo

Robredo reads the kids a book titled 'Digong Dilaw' about a boy who had the power to turn everything to yellow. OVP

It's a curious title for a book especially if she's the one who'd read it to school children but Vice President Leni Robredo swears by the lessons imparted by Virgilio Almario's story "Digong Dilaw."

At a daycare center in Tondo, Manila on Tuesday, Robredo read the national artist's story about a boy named Digo, who loved the color yellow and who eventually had the power to turn everything to yellow.

Just like Midas who eventually realized the folly of turning everything he touched into gold, Digo in the story woke up from what turned out to be a dream and learned to love the other colors.

"Nung first time ko nakita iyon, naaliw ako kasi, parang, iyong irony. Saka 'yung representation,” Robredo said of the book.

“Maganda iyong kuwento. Napakalaki nung aral para sa mga bata,” she added.

President Rodrigo Duterte's nickname is Digong and unlike the Digo in the children's story, he has shown his disdain for the "yellows", an apparent reference to members of Robredo's Liberal Party.

Duterte has accused members of the former ruling party of conspiring with the Left and former rebel soldiers of being involved in an ouster plot against him.

The edition of Digong Dilaw was published in 2003, but historian Xiao Chua said that according to Adarna House, the story was one of its first five books and dates to the late 1970s, just before the publishing house's establishment in 1980. —NB/BM, GMA News