LEFTIST members of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Cabinet have made it clear that they will remain at their posts, despite their opposition to his decision to allow the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, a political detainee under Marcos’ Martial Law regime from 1972 to 1980, reiterated her opposition to the burial, but said she will remain with the government and pursue her vision of bringing improvements to social services for the people
Former Gabriela party-list congresswoman Liza Maza, now secretary of the National Anti-Poverty Commission, said history has already judged Marcos when he was ousted in 1986.
“Certainly, my position is different from the President’s. I do not believe that Marcos is a hero. I am opposed to the revision of history.”
Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglungsod, meanwhile, said that while he is not in favor of Duterte’s decision, he “is just following what the law is saying.”
“I don’t have a problem where he is buried so long as he won’t be declared a hero,” he said.
With a pragmatic eye on her objectives, Maza added: “All these are being weighed. Even from the start, both President Duterte and the left were aware that there are issues we agree on, like independent foreign policy, peace process and some reforms that can be realized during his term, and there are issues that we don’t agree on…. At this point, there is still space for common agenda that can be maximized in the service of the people.”
This isn’t the first time the administration’s alliance with the left has been tested, nor will it likely be the last. In August, a report circulated said leftist members of the Cabinet would resign en masse to protest the rise in extra-judicial killings as a result of the President’s bloody anti-drug campaign, as well as a plan at that stage to allow the Marcos burial to go ahead.
The report turned out to be false, and Taguiwalo, Maza and Maglungsod and Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano have stayed on to do their jobs.
Such pragmatism will not make for dramatic headlines as a “principled” walkout would, but it does offer the possibility of moving forward and actually getting something done.
The South Africa civil rights activist Desmond Tutu once wrote, “Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another… and seek the greater good of the other.”
The leftists in the Cabinet have shown such maturity. Perhaps if we all did, we could move forward more quickly as a nation united.