A senior lawmaker has expressed confidence that the legacy of the late labor secretary and Senate President Blas F. Ople as the architect of the Philippine government’s overseas employment program will live on with the appointment of his daughter, Ma. Susana “Toots” Ople, as the first ever head of the newly created Department of Migrant Workers (DMW).
The younger Ople had founded the Blas Ople Policy Center (BOPC), which provides assistance to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), especially those who are being maltreated by their foreign employers.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte noted at a recent committee hearing of the Commission on Appointments (CA) that, “I’ve known her [Ople] for over 10 years, and her heart and dedication for our countrymen, especially our migrant workers, is in her blood, in her heart, in her soul.”
“I’m sure the legacy your father Ka Blas instilled upon you, you will continue,” Villafuerte, who is CA majority leader, said during the hearing on Ople’s appointment by the CA committee on labor, employment, social welfare and migrant workers chaired by Bacolod City Rep. Greg Gasataya.
Ople’s appointment was later approved on the same day by the CA en banc during its plenary session.
Villafuerte said, “Sinasabi ko po ‘to dahil ito po totoong nangyari, and I am very confident that the legacy, commitment of Ka Blas, who was kasama po ng aking ama sa Marcos [Sr.] Cabinet. My father was secretary of Trade, at si Ka Blas po ay nasa Kabinete [as labor secretary].”
He was referring to his late father and former Bicol political kingpin, the late Luis Villafuerte Sr., who had served as governor and congressman of CamSur and as trade secretary under the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.
When Villafuerte Sr. was in the Marcos Cabinet, Blas Ople was also there as Secretary (and later Minister) of Labor and Employment.
The late Ople had served, too, as Senate President during the Estrada administration and Foreign Affairs Secretary under the Arroyo administration, but his most enduring legacy is believed to be his crafting in 1976 of the overseas employment program, which has since been a major driver of the Philippine economy.
According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), personal remittances from both land-based and sea-based OFWs rose 4 percent last September to $3.15 billion.
“I just like to manifest that there is no better person to lead this newly created agency, than the Honorable Secretary,” Villafuerte said of the younger Ople during the recent CA hearing, in which her appointment was confirmed along with the designation of former National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) chief Gamaliel Cordoba as chairman of the Commission on Audit (COA).
“I would just like to share with our colleagues and the public that even before she was appointed as secretary, she had already dedicated her life to the cause of our migrant workers,” he said.