Goodbye, 2011!
Like clothes on fire, we just couldn’t wait to shed 2011 fast enough. That was the year of major quakes, unbelievable tsunamis, fast-rising floods and rainfalls so voluminous that the earth could no longer absorb every drop. That was the year when the peso grew stronger diminishing the buying capacity of every dollar remitted from abroad. That was also the year when President Aquino better defined himself as a leader who means business when running after those who in his mind and heart have long betrayed the public’s trust. 2011 was the year when the Liberal Party as the administration party showed real muscle even when public opinion stood divided as to how it was flexed. December 2011 was the year when Christmas became a sad and mute witness to...
Heroes
Labor Attache Nasser Mustafa is a hero. While in Libya, he fulfilled his promise to bring home two Filipino domestic workers being held against their will by their employer, deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s niece. While the Department of Foreign Affairs had enunciated its position to wait for the Libyan transition council to take over the country’s leadership, Labor Attache Mustafa worked out a bold rescue plan. What was remarkable about his feat is the modesty attached to it. An initial statement issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs regarding the Philippine Embassy’s rescue mission conjured images of an elaborate and grandiose plan, citing the use of two embassy teams and a pit stop at the embassy itself. That someone even felt...
Sustainability and the act of saving lives
If you have the power to save a life, would you do it? Or do you set a limit on how much time, effort, and money you are willing to set aside before you even decide to act? That is the crux of the matter involving the creation of a technical working group to study what the administration’s policy should be when it comes to blood money involving overseas Filipino workers on death row. The decision of the Office of the President to create a technical working group to study and create guidelines on cases involving blood money stemmed from unusually high amounts being required by aggrieved families. The Department of Foreign Affairs have raised the issue of sustainability in relation to requests for blood money. But first, a definition of terms. Qisas is...
Ople Center Reactions to the Taiwan Deportation Issue
News Release Blas F. Ople Policy Center February 10, 2010 NGO calls on PH to say less and do more to show appreciation for its friendship with Taiwan Former labor undersecretary and known OFW advocate Susan Ople called on the Aquino administration to bare its plans on how to mitigate the impact of further fall-out from the ongoing row between the Philippines and Taiwan over the recent deportation of 24 Taiwanese nationals to mainland China. The daughter of the late Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas F. Ople stressed that while the Philippine government continues to invoke its One-China policy, the fate of over 100,000 Filipino workers and their families back home hang in the balance. “Are we truly prepared to walk the talk? What is our contingency plan...
Year 2011
I was born in the 60’s. I was too young to recall why an angry mob shooed the Beatles away from our airport but old enough to remember the soundtracks from such TV comedies as “M.A.S.H” and “Welcome Back, Kotter.” My father owned a blue Chevrolet Impala with a leather backseat big and wide enough to swallow me up. I imagined it as a spaceship, with its oversized built-in radio and a near-panoramic windshield. Soon enough, that car gave way to a succession of other vehicles – including a Ford Fierra that was so springy that my brothers and I had to hold on to something every time the tires hit a pothole. My nieces and nephews don’t know any of these things – the Love Bus, music cartridges for car stereos, long-playing albums and 45...
Susan “Toots” Ople
My friends call me Toots. Am the youngest of seven siblings. Our family hails from the coastal town of Hagonoy, Bulacan and we are proud of our roots. My daughter's name is Estelle and she's a brilliant debater/person. I love dogs! And I enjoy writing in the dead of the night.
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