BERNADETTE FATIMA ROMULO PUYAT, undersecretary for special concerns at the Department of Agriculture (DA), tells a very funny story about one of her travels to the hinterlands of Mindanao to speak with Manobo tribeswomen.
“After our discussion on what they needed for their cacao production, I opened the floor for questions. To my surprise, instead of asking about the assistance our agency could extend to them, what they asked me was: ‘Ano po ang beauty secret n’yo?’” she recalled with much amusement.
Most of the women, toiling for hours under the harsh sun, their skin tanned to a dark brown, asked her how they could lighten their complexion. Once you think about it, the questions don’t come as a total surprise as Berna, looks delicate and fragile with her vibrant mestiza complexion. (“No beauty secret,” she stressed. “At night I just use Pond’s cold cream and Cetaphil cleanser. I also use creams which my dermatologist told me to use since I have this skin condition called rosacea.”)
The encounter just goes to show that her visits to the countryside are never boring, she said, still chuckling at the story. One can’t be a one-trick pony where women are concerned. Berna said discussions with women in rural areas encompass issues with their families, especially their husbands, aside from trying to learn how to improve their livelihoods.
“And, you know, in all agriculture products, there is really a high participation of women,” she stressed. No crop is harvested and processed, nor any farm-based product made without passing through the hands of women—be it selling their husbands’ catch in the market, drying the palay under the sun, or weaving piña fiber into fabric.
And the DA, with some P1.9 billion in its kitty allocated this year specifically for Gender and Development (GAD), is making sure the women in the countryside are getting all the help they need. (Under the Magna Carta for Women, all government agencies are supposed to allocate 5 percent of their budget for women development programs.)
(Disclosure: I worked at the DA in the late 1980s and it has always had a special place in my heart. It was there I was able to visit the farthest rural areas and interact with ordinary farmers and fisherfolk; they are the unsung heroes of our country. They are the ones that need the most help from the government if they are to continue putting food on our tables.)
Trained as an economist at the University of the Philippines, Berna never thought she’d end up in a job that took her out of the comforts of home. “Among my siblings, I’m the one who hates going out,” she said in her sweet little-girl voice. She is second to the youngest in the brood of five of former Foreign Affairs Secretary and ex-Senator Alberto Romulo and his wife, Lovely Romulo nee Tecson.
“My ultimate dream was to be a housewife, just like my mom. I never wanted to enter public service. I didn’t have a good experience growing up; as early as nine years old, I was already campaigning (first for her grandfather Carlos who ran for assemblyman in 1978, then her father as senator in 1985). And this was usually during summer. Normal kids would go to the beach, but we would spend our summers campaigning. In politics or public service, you have to always put your game face on, so I really hated it.”
Still, it was public service that she ended up in. She taught at the government-run UP School of Economics, molding young people’s minds. “The salary was low but I liked teaching because I felt I made a difference.”
After nine years in the academe, Berna took a stab at politics, running as representative of the first district of Quezon City in 2004. (She lost to ex-convict-turned-preacher Bingbong Crisologo by a mere 2,000 votes.)
“I ran para lang maalis sa system ko,” she said. “But Bingbong was a better candidate, he really loved it, the politics. I liked it but it’s difficult when you’re a mother. I’d be late for my kid’s seventh birthday party because I was at the birthday of a local leader. I would spend more time with my leaders than with my kids.”
She, however, credits her electoral run for opening her eyes to the many needs of the poor, among them medicine. Soon after, Berna established a number of Botika ng Bayan all over the metro selling reasonably-priced generic drugs.
She later joined the Arroyo administration in 2005 as consultant to the powerful Presidential Management Staff (PMS), a job that she nonetheless found boring. “Your work consisted of coordinating with the Cabinet and following up with instructions to them from the President.”
Her boss then at the PMS, Arthur Yap, asked her if she wanted to join him at the DA, which he was later to head as secretary. “I asked him what I would do there, and he answered, ‘Bahala ka.’ In other words: make yourself relevant.” In a way, she said, it really piqued her interest because it was something her father didn’t know anything about as his expertise lay elsewhere. “Somehow you want to be known for your own accomplishments, and not because you’re the child of so and so,” Berna said.
When Berna first started her work at the DA, she took care of the foreign grants, and made sure they all properly went to projects vitally needed by the farmers. “I loved negotiating with foreign governments, the way we were able to get the grants, then channeling them to the farmers. Ang saya-saya nila when we’re able to help them.”
But it was her work with rural women beneficiaries that really made her devoted to her work. Her latest GAD projects include microfinance programs for women farmer beneficiaries; technical support and provision of seedlings, planting materials, fermentation boxes and processing equipment for Manobo women farmers; product promotion and market linkage support for coffee farmers in Kalinga, Bukidnon and Mt. Kanlaon, as well as pili, cacao, and cassava farmers in Camarines Sur; establishment of an organic village for indigenous women farmers in Davao; and production and technical support for organic farmers in Bukidnon, to name a few.
“This job gives you fulfillment,” Berna said with obvious pride. “I enjoy it. Nothing beats being right there in the provinces—no one really knows you, and yet you’re helping a lot of people.”
Berna said she makes sure she stays home on Sundays, though, when she has lunch with her kids—Vito, 19, and Maia, 18—then dinner with her parents with the Romulo brood—which includes her siblings Mons, Lupe, Roman (husband to former Valenzuela City councilor Shalani Soledad), and Erwin, along with their respective families.
Widowed at a young age (her husband was lawyer David Puyat, who died of a sudden heart attack in 2010 playing football), Berna faces the prospect of being an empty nester soon, now that her kids are of college age. She says she’s not closing her doors to another possible relationship, “but I’m not looking for it [love],” content with the thought that she will find someone if it’s meant to be.
Asked if she’s currently dating anyone, she laughed and said: “Can I plead the fifth? [Laughs] When I’m not busy with my kids or my work, I go out with groups of friends just to de-stress.”
In the meantime, Berna channels her passion to her children and her work, serving those in the countryside who need government help the most. She will go out armed with the planting seeds, processing equipment, and, yes, some beauty tips, as well.
1 comment
too early berna campaining for your brother.