PRESIDENT-ELECT Rody Duterte has said many times that he wants more women and Mindanaoans in his Cabinet. But Mindanao has gotten only three major posts so far – and no key woman department secretary yet.
The prominent early picks from the big island are former Associate Justice Leo D. Medialdea (executive secretary), former Agriculture Secretary Carlos Dominguez (finance secretary), and former North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol (agriculture secretary).
If former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro of Tarlac hesitates accepting Duterte’s invitation for him to head the defense department again, there is somebody else who fits the post, while at the same time being an accomplished woman and a Mindanaoan. That will be shooting three birds.
We are referring to three-term former Agusan del Norte Rep. Charito B. Plaza, the country’s first woman brigadier general in the armed forces whose experience and expertise include legislative and executive exposures.
Plaza is the first woman general in the air force, first woman general from Mindanao, youngest commissioned lieutenant colonel at age 29, and the youngest colonel at 35.
Mayor Duterte would certainly remember her as one of the spearheads of the “Run, Duterte, Run” Movement in Mindanao, particularly in the Caraga region.
Plaza received one of the armed forces’ highest awards, the Outstanding Achievement Medal, for her successful negotiation with 205 Moro National Liberation Front warriors of MNLF chair Nur Misuari in 2003 who were not absorbed into the PNP and AFP ranks, as well as for her arranging in 1992 the surrender of 105 ragtag Army and CAFGU elements in Esperanza, Agusan del Sur, when renegade Col. Alexander Noble failed in his Mindanao Independence Movement.
A university instructor, lecturer and visiting fellow, Plaza is a known peace advocate, educator, and defense and security expert educated and trained on such matters in Philippine and international schools.
She holds two doctoral degrees – in Peace and Administration and in Public Administration. She earned her Masters in National Security Administration degree from the National Defense College of the Philippines.
Plaza completed post-graduate courses at the University of Melbourne, Australia, on Conflict Resolution and Management, and at the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University, Massachusetts, on National and International Security Management.
She was once the consultant and adviser of the AFP Technical Working Group for Legislative Affairs and the AFP Chiefs of Staff, while acting as the chief lobbyist of the AFP Budget and Legislative Agenda.
Rightly so, because in the Congress, she was the vice chair of the committee on national defense and chair on the sub-committee on internal security. She was a principal and co-author of the AFP Modernization Law, and landmark legislation increasing the base pay and other benefits of the men in uniform.
In peace and security discussions, the general advocates the putting up of Defense Industrial Complexes – two in Luzon, two in the Visayas, and two in Mindanao – by inviting investors from the aircraft, shipbuilding, military weapons and ammunition, and hardware and software industries.
• Pineda gave Capampangans ‘free will’?
REACTING to observations that a big number of her candidates and endorsees in the last elections lost, Pampanga Gov. Lilia “Baby” Pineda explained in a statement that she gave Capampangan voters “free will.”
Pineda, who handily won her third and last gubernatorial term last May 9, clarified that her expression of support of the Liberal Party slate and endorsement of some chosen candidates were mere suggestions that need not be followed.
She should have said so, we think, when she read from her codigo her endorsement of the Liberal Party slate last March 17 in the pleased presence of President Noynoy Aquino in a rally on the capitolio grounds.
Among the candidates that she endorsed were the LP lead pair of Mar Roxas (for president) and Leni Robredo (for vice president). But Capampangans repudiated the Daang Matuwid duo and voted instead for the mixed pair of Rody Duterte and Bongbong Marcos.
It was striking that none of the four congressional districts and not one of the three city mayoralties in Pampanga were won by Pineda’s Kambilan (Shield) party and its allies. In fact, seven of her Kambilan mayors were also wiped out as the surge for change swept the province.
In the same statement, Pineda sounded a call for solidarity: “Now that the election is over, we must get back to serving the public and work together.” As mother of the province, she said, it was not her style to dictate Capampangans whom to vote for.
She said: “I gave them the free will to select their leaders, because the essence of democracy is people empowerment. You let the people decide for themselves. Ours are just suggestions and manifestation of support, but the people’s will and decisions shall be done at the end of day. That’s what I want and what I did in the last election.”
Running unopposed like her kumare former President and now second district Rep. Gloria Arroyo (also on her third and last term), Pineda garnered 737,481 votes in the May 9 election, or more than 80 percent of the total number of valid ballots canvassed in the province.
The governor's son Vice Gov. Dennis Pineda also ran unopposed, getting 650,006 votes equivalent to more than 70 percent of the total votes canvassed.
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