‘Mayokmok’
If Gina Lopez couldn’t make it, what could be Judy Taguiwalo’s and Rafael Mariano’s chances of being confirmed as department secretaries of Social Welfare and Development and Agrarian Reform respectively? I hope I am wrong but my answer is from slim to zero.
Lopez, who belongs to the powerful clan that controls ABS-CBN, is not a leftist, not by a long shot. Yet the doors she has opened for the victims of environmentally destructive yet not beneficial (to obscure folks) mining have been closed down by the Commission on Appointments (CA) whose members we know represent the interests of her social class.
If they could not trust their own kind to protect their vested interests, how much less trust would they have on Taguiwalo and Mariano who are unabashedly leftist in socio-economic orientation?
The CA had no good reason to resort to secret voting for both Perfecto Yasay and Gina Lopez. But now in Taguiwalo’s and Mariano’s final confirmation hearings they are justifying it with reported death threats from the NPA. Not surprising because the best way to get re-elected is to join the ruling party but vote secretly, whenever possible, against projects, appointments, etc. that are a threat to your political ambitions.
We could use a healthy dose of the liberal left’s socialism to maintain a needed equilibrium in our politics and economy that have consistently been swinging towards the pro-status quo power-wielders of the conservative right. It is sad and unfortunate enough that Filipinos have lost their champion for the environment in Gina Lopez. It is sadder still and more unfortunate if Judy Taguiwalo and Rafael Mariano are stopped by the CA (which seems quite certain) from opening doors of opportunity to long-neglected and long-suffering small tenant farmers and urban poor.
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD), for all his un-presidential ways, has definitely started to open doors to marginalized Filipinos with whom he is understandably extremely popular. And judging from the heavy flak he is getting from local oligarchs and their international allies who look down on Filipinos as mayokmok (worthless young ones of mice) one can conclude that he is opening the right doors, the ones precisely that the powerful privileged few want closed to the majority of Filipinos.
Recent events, however, show that PRRD’s temporary allies, political opportunists in Congress, are now slowly closing these doors. It is worrisome that Ms. Lopez’s replacement, Roy Cimatu, is seen by many as more of a player for the controlling class that shot Lopez down. Hopefully, in the event of Taguiwalo’s and Mariano’s certain rejection by the CA, their replacements would have the orientation and will to keep doors open at the social welfare and agrarian reform departments.