Senate Majority Leader Franklin Drilon said he has supported the confirmation of Judy Taguiwalo, who was eventually ejected by the powerful Commission on Appointments on Wednesday.
Pressed if there should be transparency in the voting of the 25 members of the bicameral congressional body, Drilon said: “I am transparent with my vote so let other answer for their votes. Why ask me? Let them answer.”
Asked earlier if the CA member should be transparent in their vote, Drilon said he did not know what happened. But he believes that Taguiwalo should stay [at the DSWD] so he had voted to confirm her interim appointment.
Liberal Party President Senator Francis Pangilinan disclosed that the LP Senate contingent on the CA, composed of Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, Drilon, and Senator Bam Aquino all voted in favor of Taguiwalo’s confirmation.
Aquino said it was unfortunate that Taguiwalo did not have enough votes for her confirmation, despite his colleagues vouching for her integrity and work ethic.
“Her replacement will have major challenges ahead, like sustaining the success of the 4Ps program and ramping up its implementation,” he said.
“Our Secretary of Social Welfare and Development [DSWD] will need a passion to address inequality in the Philippines to ensure the effectiveness of our poverty alleviation programs,” he said.
Meanwhile, Recto, who expressed dismay over Taguiwalo’s rejection, said the next DSWD secretary should be in the mold of the 10 women who had held that post since 1986.
If tradition is to be followed, he said there’s a high bar to be met in choosing the head of an agency that helps those who have fallen through the cracks of society.
“Recite their names and one can come to the conclusion that DSWD has always been run by women with the head and the heart to lead a frontline agency,” said Recto who endorsed the nomination of Taguiwalo as DSWD secretary to the CA.
He said Mita Pardo de Tavera, Corazon Alma de Leon, Lilian Laigo, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Dulce Saguisag, Corazon Soliman, Luwalhati Pablo, Esperanza Cabral, Celia Yangco and Taguiwalo were all hardworking professionals. But he said DSWD’s expanded mandate has put the qualification standard a notch higher.
“The magnitude of programs leaves no room for an OJT to take over Judy Taguiwalo’s seat,” Recto said.
He noted that one in five Filipinos today is a recipient of DWSD assistance. In all, 28.29 million Filipinos are regular beneficiaries of its welfare and development programs.
Recto added that through its mega-billion cash transfer programs, the DSWD in effect maintains the country’s biggest payroll.
For 2017, 4.4 million families or about 19.360 million individuals are enrolled in its Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps. Almost three million senior citizens receive P500 a month under the Social Pension for Indigents Program. DSWD is also a big catering operation. It serves one nutritious meal a day to 1.746 million kids for 120 days or an equivalent of 209 million kiddie meals served in a year.
It runs orphanages, halfway houses for women in distress, old age homes with a projected total clientele of 410,000. This includes individuals in emergency situations in need of assistance. On top of this, DSWD has war evacuees to attend to. Marawi alone has 201,000 individuals. DWSD is also a first responder to calamities, whether natural, like a typhoon, or man-made, like fires.
This year DSWD has the budget to attend to the needs of 346,000 of them. Through Kalahi-CIDSS, DSWD funds and incubates entrepreneurship programs, and implements small community infrastructure programs. 1.540 million were enrolled in its various livelihood programs. With more programs, comes a bigger budget. No longer a cellar dweller in the national budget, the agency has pole-vaulted to the circle of Top 5 recipients with a budget of P128 billion this year.
The budget of some of its programs dwarfs those of other departments. 4Ps has a 2017 budget of P78.186 billion; the pension for seniors, P17.940 billion; children’s feeding, P4.427 billion. All of these are being managed by a relatively small crew of 2,800 regular DSWD employees, which is 1/28th the size of the DepED workforce.
Recto said backing them up is a pool of 25,200 contractual employees. These are the programs that await the incoming DSWD secretary. “Clearly, it is not for the faint of heart. Those with no organizational experience need not apply.”
Meanwhile, militant lawmakers ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro and Antonio Tinio denounced the Commission on Appointment’s rejection of Taguiwalo.
“This rejection of Secretary Taguiwalo’s appointment is also a rejection of the reforms she instituted in order to end political patronage in the management of public funds. It is a rejection of the kind of DSWD that genuinely served the poor and marginalized,” Castro and Tinio said.
Castro said Taguiwalo’s rejection was “a tremendous loss for the people for whom she stood as DSWD chief.”
In the short year of her service, the DSWD championed the poor, women, children, and the “lumad” and other indigenous peoples. Sec. Judy called for the resumption of the peace talks towards a negotiated peace settlement that will address the roots of the armed conflict–poverty, landlessness, inaccessibility to services, and inequitable distribution of wealth and resources,” she added.
Tinio said the CA’s refusal to let Taguiwalo remain in her post proves that those instituting reforms in government will not be tolerated by traditional politicians.
Tinio notedthat one of the first acts of Taguiwalo as Social Welfare Secretary is the issuance of Memorandum Circular 9 which enforces the SC ruling on unconstitutionality of the Priority Development Assistance Fund by declaring that referrals from government officials are not integral to the implementation of DSWD’s Protective Services Program.
This circular ensures that DSWD’s funds reach the poor and are not used for patronage, Tinio said.
Tinio said another is her support for the SSS pension hike, which she actively campaigned for inside the cabinet along with fellow progressives Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano and National Anti-Poverty Commission Secretary Liza Maza.
Taguiwalo also pushed for the regularization of the thousands of personnel in DSWD who have long been under repeatedly renewed short-term contracts, Tinio noted.
Taguiwalo was the third Cabinet official appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte to be turned down by the bicameral body.
The vote came after the CA’s committee on labor and social welfare headed by Davao Oriental Rep. Joel Almario recommended the rejection of Taguiwalo’s appointment.
Almario did not say how the voting went, but said they reached the majority vote of 13.
Other appointees rejected by the CA were Perfecto Yasay Jr. as Foreign Affairs secretary and Gina Lopez as Environment secretary.
In a statement, Almario said the CA members did their homework of scrutinizing the appointees’ background, present disposition, and plans in helping the Duterte administration.
“I find Sec. Taguiwalo not only a person of high integrity and competence, but also passionate in her desire to help the poor. I can only guess from the questions raised that maybe some factors which led to the rejection of her appointment were her stand against tax reform and the national I.D. system as she implied she was against these measures while they are still undergoing deliberations,” Almario said.
