It was a lovely Saturday morning when Mohamed Nasheed dropped by to see the exhibit Letizia: A Life in Letters. He loved the exhibit so much he stayed for more stories exchanged over lunch and to enjoy the company of the family’s matriarch, Lourdes Balderrama Constantino.

Nasheed is currently the secretary general of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), a 74-nation group of countries vulnerable to climate change. He was previously the president of the Maldives, an island nation facing global warming-induced challenges very similar to what the Philippines is experiencing.

Nasheed, also a former speaker of the Maldivian parliament called the Majlis, remains a storied figure in international climate and democracy issues. The Island President, a most gripping and colorful documentary was made about him – highly recommended – and it tells much more about the person, including more parallels with very recent Philippine history. Nasheed was the central figure in the fight for democracy that toppled the dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives with an iron fist from 1978 to 2008.

Nasheed was in the country to help lead the gathering of the Global Parliamentary Group of the CVF, which had convened in the Philippine National Museum. The event was opened by Senator Loren Legarda and Ambassador Elizabeth Thompson, designated to represent Prime Minister Mia Mottley and the Barbados presidency of the CVF and V20 Group of Finance Ministers.

Nasheed was delighted to see what he called “a far more intimate picture of the Philippines” as he marveled at the theatrical display of letters, images, and artifacts assembled and arranged to give a glimpse of the multiple layers of the life of Letizia Roxas Constantino, writer, historian, pianist, grandmother, and lifelong collaborator and wife of Renato Constantino.

Nasheed told Lourdes Constantino “I much prefer, without any shred of doubt, what I experienced in your exhibit and home!” as the discussion ranged from art to politics and policy to food, memories and history.

Lunch at the Panay Avenue compound of the Constantino Foundation is always compelling, not only for the food but also the subject that is inescapable to many of its visitors – the past, especially the Philippine past. Nasheed himself is a writer and genealogist. The former president is currently writing his memoirs and he said everything he saw in the exhibit, and the house of the Constantinos, has inspired him to undertake similar initiatives in Male, his country’s capital.

Indeed, there is much in common between the two countries. Where we now deal with persistent rumbling and seismic movements because of the country’s many active volcanoes, Nasheed said the Maldives once had the same – except that 7,000 years ago one of their volcanoes disintegrated after a gigantic eruption, leaving only the coral atolls that now make up the Maldives, where land is merely 1 percent of the nation, the rest being ocean and tide. The highest natural point in the island nation is merely 1.5 meters above sea level, and they are today dealing with rising sea levels, ocean acidification, severe storms, and increasingly difficult agricultural and fisheries challenges.

As with many good things in life, Nasheed’s visit had to come to an end. If he gets back to the Philippines again in the future, Nasheed vowed to stay instead in Panay Ave. if Mrs. Constantino would have him.

Nasheed was joined for lunch by Justine Xyrah Garcia, a reporter of leading Philippine business newspaper who was interviewing the former head of state for a captivating story that yesterday headlined the Sunday edition of the BusinessMirror.