They’re both ladies of a certain age, fetching in their different ways, of Ilonggo background, and highly visible members of the Duterte Cabinet who’ve had to undergo fairly bruising confirmation hearings at Congress. But the big similarities stop there.
For starters, one has already been turned down twice by the congressmen and senators sitting on the appointments commission. And since this isn’t baseball with its three-strikes-out rule, she’s expected to finally head back to the bench, though probably not for good.
The other, after being turned down the first time, seems headed for confirmation now, despite some fairly pointed questions leveled at her. And this, despite the baggage of being a water-carrier for an openly insurrectionist group.
The one, Gina Lopez, I’ve met only casually, during my years with senior management in the Lopez group. The other, Judy Taguiwalo, I’ve known since college, in and out of jail, which is where friendships are truly tested.
How these two ladies ended up in different places offers up a lot of lessons, the most important of which is probably this: If you’re in the Cabinet, you have no other agenda except the President’s. It’s a simple rule of decency and loyalty that’s almost always observed—the backstabbing Hyatt 10, of course, excepted.
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In Gina’s case, it was never an issue of decency with this extremely well-bred lady, or of loyalty, considering how she always seemed to collapse into girlish giggles whenever she was around the President. One can only imagine the brickbats she had to endure from her family whenever Duterte would publicly tear into them.
However, the passion for the environment that endeared her to the President and to so many others—and in fact still does—got in the way of what should have been her better judgment, once too often. The list of Gina’s infractions just kept getting longer:
Cancelling all those mining service agreements on the basis of an absurdly expansive definition of “protected watershed.”
Conducting an overly broad and punitive environmental audit whose technical integrity was questioned by some of the auditors themselves.
Levying additional fines on mining ore stockpiles with no legal basis for doing so.
Sweeping rejection of ALL open-pit mining for gold, silver and nickel, precious metals which are often found only a couple of meters underground.
Gina’s critics were getting really nasty towards the end, when she was being charged with favoritism not only for her family’s natural gas and coal mining interests, but even for the charcoal business of one of her undersecretaries.
I’m glad that her departure at least averted a longer ordeal for the Lopezes, an old landed family whose mountainous dignity is a storied part of both our commercial and political history as a nation.
Perhaps all that historicity—coupled with her greenness of passion and experience—distracted Gina from some of what should have been her rules of right conduct in the Cabinet:
Politically, your job is to make things happen for the President, not the other way around. The number of times you’re allowed to invoke his name is very small.
Organizationally, you should be leading towards consensus, not agitating towards division. The former produces results, the latter great press releases.
Practically, you should avoid picking fights you cannot win by yourself. The mining industry is a very large and well-connected industry with a legitimate role to play in the economy. You want them by your side at least half of the time.
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In Judy’s case, she was part of a Faustian bargain the President had to make in order to bring the truculent armed Left to the negotiating table. Thus it’s been easy to caricature her in black and white terms, as a Trojan horse allowed inside in order to placate the crafty armies of Greece on the other side of the walls.
Her revolutionary bona fides are undisputed. Students (if not participants) of recent history may remember an iconic photo from the demo in front of the old Congress building on Jan. 26, 1970 that sparked the so-called First Quarter Storm of that year.
The photo shows a bunch of students crowding into a jeepney to escape the police truncheons, and prominently features the shapely legs and backside of a miniskirted lady in the middle. That backside belonged to Judy.
From those early years as a founding member of SDK mass, Judy has ceaselessly marched the streets and picket lines for the radical Left. But this activism did not prevent her from pursuing a notable academic career in social work at the UP, as well as starting a family on her own—a fact that was crudely noted at her confirmation hearings by Senator Sotto, who really should wash his mouth with soap and water more often.
Since heading up the DSWD, Judy has turned back every attempt to depict her as less than totally honest and caring for the millions of poor who comprise her agency’s charges. When some congressmen tried to put her on the spot about the prepositioning of certain relief goods, she called them out and stared them down with facts and numbers.
Unfortunately, the NDF connections that put Judy in the Cabinet also often give her a hard time. She went out of her way to feed the Kadamay housing activists when they were illegally occupying vacant housing in Bulacan. And when Senator Lacson pointedly asked her if she renounced violence, she hemmed and hawed for quite a while.
In the end, though, Judy came up with all the right answers. Yes, she renounced violence “as it is.” Yes, she sees herself as the President’s man first, and an NDF activist only second, while she’s in the Cabinet. And yes, she would be happy to help him with his peacemaking.
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Perhaps it would really be too much, after all, to expect an heiress to conduct herself with the discipline of a battle-hardened activist. Just as it would also be too much to expect that activist to give up the beliefs and values of a lifetime that she knows she’ll be going back to, once the all-too-fleeting privileges of Cabinethood are surrendered.
This is the diversity of points of view that can be so valuable to a president, provided he or she is willing to listen to them. And if one of the ingredients in the mix turns out to be too hot to handle—well, we can only suggest, if Gina is better on the outside looking in, that she be given a seat right by the window, where she can continue to be heard.
Readers can write me at gbolivar1952@yahoo.com.