THE LEGAL FRONT
Atty. Arturo D. Brion, Ll.B, Ll.M.
Former Senate President Blas F. Ople (Ka Blas, to many) must have been smiling up there on his 95th natal day last Feb. 3 as he viewed our recent national developments, his daily routine during his years as a public servant, journalist, and as a concerned private citizen.
He had served our government in various capacities, among them, as Secretary of Labor and Employment, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Assemblyman for Central Luzon, 1986 Constitutional Commission member, Senator, and ultimately, as Senate President. In the field of labor and employment, he had also served as president of the International Labour Conference, the first Filipino to hold that post.
He came from very humble beginnings, the son of a fisherman from Hagonoy, Bulacan, but he distinguished himself intellectually early on. He was a self-learner throughout his life and was a voracious reader. He was known for the libraries that he maintained, not only at his residence but in his various offices as a public servant and as a private citizen. I saw him buy copies of the books he had read and liked, to be given to friends. Good books, to him, are not only for reading but for sharing with others.
His roots and readings perhaps led to his progressive left-of-center views: he had always sought to address the country’s wider societal problems (in particular, the widespread poverty and consequent inequality) by seeking to ease the difficulties of the common man who became his direct constituent as Minister of Labor in the Marcos government.
His first major initiative as Labor Minister in 1967 was to initiate the drafting of a Labor Code to consolidate the country’s scattered labor laws, and to inject the social justice thoughts that even the Supreme Court had begun to reflect in their decisions.
Despite an existing labor relations law (The Industrial Peace Act, R.A. 875), prepared under the influence of liberal models such as the U.S. Taft-Hartley Act and the Wagner Act (that the US effectively used in regulating labor relations during their Depression years), the drafting a Labor Code for the country in the 1960s was not an easy task.
The country had just emerged from the Hukbalahap communist rebellion and communistic sentiments could still be heard within segments of the country’s labor and agrarian sectors. The communist victory in nearby China and the Communist-inspired push in North Korea were only more than a decade away. The Vietnam War was still in full swing. Communism was also making its presence felt in other areas of the world outside Asia.
Not to be forgotten was our local scenario - the awakening of revolutionary thoughts in groves of the academe and in workplaces, and the massive poverty and ubiquitous inequality in our society.
Under this scenario – emphasized to the public through the Plaza Miranda bombing, the growing intrusion of the New People’s Army in newer areas, and martial law as the government’s response - then Labor Minister Ople successfully spearheaded the promulgation of a Labor Code (P.D. 442) that embodied the societal balancing he envisioned between the conflicting interests of labor and capital. Passed in 1974, the Code’s terms foreshadowed our present 1987 Constitution and its labor provisions.
With these as background, our recent Labor Education Act (R.A. 11551) ordaining the mandatory teaching of the Labor Code in our tertiary and technical vocational schools could not but be a birthday gift of recognition to Ka Blas who had guided the Code’s formulation and its implementation since the 1970s.
Separately from the Labor Code, the nation also recognized his initiatives in the field of employment: in 1970, he began our program of facilitating the deployment of qualified Filipino workers for overseas work. It was a monumental task undertaken through specialized agencies that Ka Blas had established at the old Ministry of Labor (notably, the Overseas Employment Development Board under Salvador Bigay; and the National Seamen Board under Cresencio Siddayao).
The Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA), currently still efficiently functioning with Hans Cacdac as its administrator, subsequently replaced the OEDB, while the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA, established under the Migrant Workers Act of 1995, R.A. 8042, with Patricia Sto. Tomas as its first administrator) consolidated the earlier agencies and efforts on overseas employment.
Patricia Sto. Tomas later became Department of Labor (DOLE) Secretary after Labor Secretaries Augusto Sanchez and Franklin Drilon. She was succeeded by DOLE Secretaries Nieves Confesor, Arturo Brion, Marianito Roque and Rosalinda Baldoz, who (together with Sec. Sto. Tomas) were all hired and nurtured by Ka Blas.
Based on official statistics, we deployed 2.2 million Filipino workers worldwide in 2020 (although this number has markedly decreased under the current pandemic), with an estimated P211.9 billion remitted to the country in 2019.
All these developments provided supportive economic strength and social stability to the country since the 1970s, and served as basis for the recent creation of a Department of Overseas Filipino Workers – another express recognition of the past efforts of Ka Blas.
Ka Blas significantly moved in other national areas of concern, among them, in foreign affairs when he became our foreign secretary in July 2002 during President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration. He then openly supported the Visiting Forces Agreement that allowed limited U.S. military presence in the country. This is the same agreement benefiting the country today as we resist Chinese intrusion into the West Philippine Sea.
Ka Blas unselfishly and tirelessly contributed everything he could give to the nation during his lifetime. The nation’s formal responses that I now recall on his 95th natal day are thus well-deserved recognitions that he would have smilingly appreciated.
Mission accomplished, Ka Blas. Rest well but please continue to keep us in mind from way up there, as we pursue the leads you started to attain a just and dynamic social order for our country.