Tough job

Running the social welfare department is tough.

It has one of the biggest budgets among the different agencies of government at P130 billion (for 2017, the Department of Education gets the largest at P544 billion while the public works and highways office will receive P454 billion; interior and local government office, P128 billion; national defense, P137 billion; the Philippine National Police, P110 billion; the health department, P96.3 billion; transportation, P53 billion; and agriculture, P45 billion).

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) also is charged with the implementation of the controversial conditional cash transfer or CCT program of the government, also known as the 4Ps or the  Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program which provides cash grants to poor families to be used for health and schooling. This program is partly funded by foreign loans.

The Commission on Audit (COA) has reported that payments to qualified beneficiaries suffered delays by more than a year due to delayed processing and releasing of checks by Landbank and its conduits, as well as due to the absence of partner conduits.

But of course, the problems are too many to discuss here. But former social welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo’s appointment to her post is said to have been rejected because she refused to allow the use of the CCT program as a pork barrel by some legislators and due to political interference in the use of DSWD funds.

Some of those who voted against Taguiwalo, a former UP professor and a nominee of the National Democratic Front to the Duterte administration, have said that she did not have the skills to run the DSWD. Exactly what skills are needed, they would not say. They just said she did not have them. The fact that she was a left-leaning activist could not have been the reason because she was there in the Cabinet because the President wanted an “inclusive” Cabinet. So the reason must be something else.

Even former DSWD secretary Dinky Soliman, who served under the Aquino administration and was a street parliamentarian herself, was criticized due to alleged mishandling of relief goods and assistance received following Super Typhoon Yolanda that devastated Eastern Visayas. COA discovered that hundreds of millions of funds received from local and foreign donors remained idle in the department’s bank accounts.

The 4Ps program was also allegedly used to finance the campaign of Liberal Party candidates during the last election, according to some news reports.

The feisty former DSWD chief, whose hair color changed depending on her mood, was likewise hit for rounding up street children and bringing them somewhere else during the Manila visit of Pope Francis. Soliman acknowledged that 100 homeless families were taken off the streets of Roxas Boulevard and brought to a resort were they stayed for five days during the duration of the papal visit. Soliman was excommunicated by the Catholic Church by virtue of a pastoral document immediately signed by the Pope who has said that it was unconscionable that the poor were hidden from him to make the government look good when the reason why he visited the Philippines was because of them.

Soliman has admitted that politics has hindered the delivery of services by the DSWD, from the time the budget is passed to the time the program is delivered.

Politics is a reality in this country. Good intentions are not enough. Gina Lopez, Nicanor Faeldon, Perfecto Yasay and many others have learned this the hard way. There are too many egos that need to to be pleased, too many interferences. First, a political appointee has to hurdle the all-powerful Commission on Appointments whose members do not need to have a solid, good enough reason to reject a nomination. Second, once in, the bureaucracy will take over you. Third, those who do not get their way can always find a reason to take you out.

 I know of several well-intentioned business personalities who were invited to join government, entering it full of bright ideas and the best of intentions against the advice of their families and true friends, only to leave it broken and downtrodden. It is too painful to recall the 2011 suicide of former military chief Angelo Reyes who was involved in a corruption scandal, the death of former Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona whose health suffered following his impeachment from the high tribunal due to obviously politically motivated reasons. Then of course there was Energy Regulatory Commission director Francisco Villa Jr., who took his own life after allegedly being pressured into doing illegal acts in office by higher-ups at the ERC.

I am not saying that one has to be a sell-out and sacrifice his or her principles at the expense of being in government. But when is part of an organization as big and complex as the Philippine government, one must learn how to play his or her cards right and when they should be played.

A number of names are now being mentioned as possible replacements for Taguiwalo and one of them is former Tarlac congresswoman Nikki Prieto-Teodoro, wife of former defense secretary and presidential aspirant Gilbert Teodoro.

According to the news, President Duterte met with Nikki at the Palace to witness her turnover of a million pesos in cash donation to the Armed Forces from her Golden Rooster Foundation to be used for Marawi rehabilitation efforts. But the President is said to have met with Nikki and Gibo twice and these gave rise to speculations that the two are being asked to join government. But of course Gibo has already declined Duterte’s offer last year. Then it must be Nikki who is being invited to be a part of the Cabinet this time.

The Golden Rooster Foundation is a private non-government organization chaired by Nikki that raises funds for the education and health care of neglected kids. The same group earlier donated binoculars to the military.

On Facebook, Gibo posted a photo of the P1-million turnover ceremony witnessed by the President. He said that the donation was part of his wife’s unwavering commitment to children and to the welfare of Filipino soldiers and their families, adding that it was for the benefit of the children of AFP casualties in Marawi conflict.

Gibo on FB said he was paying tribute to her wife’s championing children’s welfare, spearheading the creation of the standing committee on child welfare, passing the largest number of child welfare bills into law, creating the Amor Village in Tarlac for abandoned children and battered women, the premier such center in the country per DSWD, and other activities sans publicity, and now the Filipino soldiers and their families.

When she was in Congress, she chaired the House committee on the welfare of children where she shepherded the passage of various bills benefitting children.

Nikki has a lot of things going for her. She is young, idealistic, well educated (she has a degree in international marketing from the Webster University Geneva in Switzerland), is a successful real estate entrepreneur, is an athlete, has legislative experience, obviously has political savvy, has a good name that she would want to protect and preserve, has an unblemished reputation, and has her own money and therefore would not need to enrich herself in office.  

If indeed the President has his eye on Nikki as the next DSWD secretary, he would be making a great choice. Some may argue that she is just a beautiful socialite who does not know anything about the needs of the poor, but one does need to be poor to know how to help them. That should even challenge her to prove possible detractors are wrong about her.

TOURISM PARTNERSHIPS: Tourism Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo (middle, left row) recently met tourism leaders and stakeholders who have offered their services in pushing for an aggressive new tourism campaign that will highlight historical and cultural activities and events around the island and aimed at attracting the international market. Shown with Teo are: (left row) Juan Manuel Montel Castro-Rial, executive director of Sociedad Española De Beneficencia; ISST president and former tourism secretary Mina Gabor; and (right row) consul general and tourism advocate Robert Lim Joseph, Philippine Airlines president  Jaime Bautista (center) and NITAS vice president Angel Ramos Bognot during the luncheon business meeting.

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