Crying shame

She accounted for herself competently in the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for a year. She also fielded the Commission on Appointments’ (CA) questions eruditely and ever so forthrightly. I was pleasantly surprised that nothing in the hearings hinted at a possible rejection.

Hence, the shock was totally unexpected and utterly devastating when the CA decided to thumb down her confirmation as secretary of DSWD. It came out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning in clear daylight.

Settling down after the initial shock to analyze what happened, I could only conclude that she was rejected not for what she said quite candidly at the hearings but for what majority of CA members left unsaid. And it had nothing to do with her left-leaning ideology either because earlier Ms. Gina Lopez, who is no leftist, was also doing very well for the environment and quite forthright with her answers to CA’s questions and yet was also rejected.

I could only conclude that like Ms. Lopez, Judy Taguiwalo was rejected because of effectiveness in her work and incorruptibility in her person. These are traits that get in the way of the vested interests of those charged with confirming their appointments. If Ms. Lopez got in the way of Big Mining’s vested interests that many elected officials represent so did Judy Taguiwalo get in the way of the political interests of legislators.

Ms. Taguiwalo might be right that it is her anti pork stand that did her in. It is quite reasonable to suspect that her strong opposition to elected officials dipping their fingers into the DSWD pie for the poor was behind her cowardly rejection by the CA. One should recall here that the original Cash Transfer Program was revised because politicians listed their relatives and political supporters as beneficiaries. Cowardly because this is so disgusting a reason to admit that it could explain why the CA rejected Taguiwalo with an arrogant claim that it owes the public no explanation.

This does not bode well for Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary who is substantively and with a clear bias for small farmers implementing the country’s Agrarian Reform Law. Majority of our legislators (in the CA) represent big landed estates and will expectedly see Mr. Mariano’s effectiveness as a threat to their hegemony.

We lost a genuine and effective lover of the environment in Ms. Gina Lopez and now a genuine and effective lover of the poor in Ms. Judy Taguiwalo. Rafael Mariano’s head, a genuine and effective lover of small farmers, is probably next to roll.

I see that the CA does not have a place in government for genuine and effective lovers of the environment and of the urban and rural poor. Isn’t that a crying shame!