Even weeks after his inauguration and days shy from the first State of the Nation Address, Marcos, Jr.’s Crony Cabinet remains incomplete — with crucial positions yet to be filled. With the poor excuse of further examination of alleged nominees, Marcos, Jr.’s Cabinet still proves to be a mere compilation of recycled secretaries and officials who have served during previous administrations (and not for the best interests of the people.)
This is the fifth installment of Budol: Unsubtle Crony Traits.
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)
Despite her background in environmental and disaster risk research yet hailing from a family of landlords in Southern Tagalog, Ma. Antonia “Toni” Yulo-Loyzaga‘s appointment as Environment secretary is both welcomed and criticized in the public sphere.
Yulo-Loyzaga is a member of the Yulo-Araneta clan, notoriously known as land grabbers and development aggressors. The Yulos, intermarried with the Aranetas, have been constantly involved in cases of harassment against peasant farmers. Aside from the Yulos, notable Aranetas such as Liza, Marcos Jr.s wife, and the landgrabber Greggy are also relatives of Toni.
Southern Tagalog peasants decried the landgrabbing by Yulos. For instance, last January 2021, homes of residents in Sitio Buntog in Brgy. Canlubang, Calamba, Laguna were burned down by the San Cristobal Realty Development Corporation. Since 2020, farmers and their families had already been subjected to constant harassment and threats from security forces of the Yulo clan to institute their profit-driven and anti-people development.
Peasants have long been struggling for genuine land distribution, even dating back to the Spanish colonial period. However, their resistance is always met with abuse, violence, and displacement by feudal families who have been dominated since colonial times.
Given the Yulos’ long history of development aggression, Yulo-Loyzaga’s appointment is met with doubts. Nonetheless, her background in the environmental science field has merited her a track record welcomed by critics as well.
Yulo-Loyzaga was the former executive director of the Manila Observatory where she was able to contribute to the advancement of climate and disaster risk research. Likewise, she also worked as the technical adviser of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation. She specializes in climate change, and is involved with the Coastal Cities at Risk Project.
Despite her credentials, critics maintain a rather vigilant stance towards her appointment as DENR secretary, especially coming from a family of landgrabbers yet a renowned figure in the environmental science field. Her loyalties, whether to class or science, will be tested by her stances on anti-people reclamation projects and infrastructure under Marcos Jr.’s term.
With watchful eyes on her, Yulo-Loyzaga is more than expected to uphold the “value of good science” she preached about in relation to development, ensuring opposition and resistance towards environmentally-destructive projects by oligarchs and landlords such as the Yulos. As incoming environment secretary, her appointment raises the question of whether she would promote sustainable development or be another ruling class stalwart.
Department of Energy (DOE)
Raphael “Popo” Lotilla is dubbed as a “veteran” in the energy sector, owing to his stints both in public administration and private firms. In fact, Lotilla is only returning to a post he once occupied under plunderer and former President Macapagal-Arroyo’s term. He formerly served as the latter’s administration’s energy secretary in March 2005 until July 2007.
Macapagal-Arroyo’s term involved a major energy crisis which prompted her to enact the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) in 2001, which she boasted as a catalyst to lower the power rates as well as a ploy for the country to be loaned a staggering $950M by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
However, among EPIRA’s mandates include the privatization of energy transmission and distribution, as well as the assets of the National Power Corporation. Like any neoliberal policy, the law is never foolproof, only resulting in hikes in electricity rates, worsening the energy crisis and depleting the consumers of their financial resources.
Its first decade coincided with Lotilla’s term as energy secretary, expanding its benefits mainly for private corporations in their share of vast sums of profit. Likewise, contributing to Lotilla’s fair share of experiences in public-private affairs, he also served as the president and CEO of the government-controlled Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation mainly mandated to handle financial matters of the NPC.
Lotilla also served as the former deputy director-general of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) from 1996 to January 2004, having his share of service under former Estrada’s administration.
Putting an end to his service in the government, he fully transferred into working with private corporations, serving as the director of Aboitiz Power Corporation. He also worked for the Ayalas in ACE Enexor, involved in matters related to renewable energy sources.
With a deepening crisis in the energy sector, worsened by the Duterte regime and deemed less than a priority by the Marcos, Jr. regime, Lotilla is presented with several dilemmas and rate hikes severely condemned by the people. Lotilla is expected to deal with widespread privatization of potential energy sources as with Dutertegarch Dennis Uy’s purchase of the Malampaya gas field and neoliberal and anti-people policies, proven detrimental to the masses’ access to basic needs and services.
Department of Health (DOH) — Officer-in-Charge
Barely a month into Marcos, Jr.’s regime, he has yet to name the Department of Health’s (DOH) official secretary. In the meantime, spoils-taking aside, incumbent undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire will take the post as the essential department’s officer-in-charge.
Following her appointment as head of the National Vaccination Operations Center, Vergeire is set to take charge of the Health department ideally until July 31. This, amid a rapid surge in positive cases and development of mutated and stronger variants, sans a DOH secretary.
*As of recent updates, the country has recorded a total of 2,560 new cases, amounting to an overall 19,873 active cases sans backlogs and undocumented ones. Metro Manila logged the highest number of cases, increasing by the day; however, the area remains at Alert Level no. 1. The DOH has previously stated that the country is still considered “low risk,” despite an overt rampancy in the spread of positive cases.
Independent research institution OCTA Research projected that COVID cases are said to be at their peak in the next few days, with Metro Manila at 28% positive growth rate.
However, Vergeire is one of their staunch critics. Despite having been at the forefront of COVID-19 related headlines, with her speaking on behalf of the department imparting updates on the COVID situation in the country, Vergeire has also constantly disputed OCTA’s reports, relying highly on DOH’s supposed efforts in curbing the rapid increase in cases.
More than two years into the pandemic, the COVID situation remains bleak with the Health department constantly drawing flak over unused and misappropriated funds, lack of benefits and special risk allowances (SRAs) for frontliners, and disregard for urgent and called-for measures such as mass testing and contact tracing, to mention a few.
Vergeire’s appointment was received warmly by various lawmakers and independent organizations; however, the urgent task remains in ensuring that the joint health and economic crisis be handled with pro-people and scientifically-sound measures in place.
Beyond the pandemic response, Vergeire and the next DOH secretary will face decades-old issues of privatization of health and underfunding in the public health sector. Given their failures in the DOH under Duterte, will Vergeire reclaim herself as a doctor or continue to be a symptom of a profit-driven and failed health systems infrastructure in the country?
Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO)
Religious group intermediary and businessman, Melquiades Robles is deemed an ideal pick by Marcos, Jr. for his ideas and efforts in profitability — a distinct character of the PCSO which is mandated to allocate and generate funds for charity and health-related initiatives aside from supervising sweepstakes games such as the popular Lotto game.
Robles’ pro-profit character is especially affirmed by state mouthpiece Trixie Cruz-Angeles, citing the former as the “only administrator” to have made the agency profitable.
Prior to his involvement with government affairs, Robles first served as El Shaddai head Mike Velarde’s spokesperson. In February, the known Catholic cult endorsed the Marcos-Duterte tandem for the 2022 national elections. Their endorsement is premised on the tandem’s general campaign line: unity. Velarde said so, highlighting the tandem’s closeness with him. He especially mentioned it is high time for Filipinos to be united, stating that Marcos, Jr. must be given a chance.
Additionally, independent from El Shaddai’s pick, Robles himself is also a known Marcos, Jr. loyalist, as reported by the Manila Bulletin in relation to the group’s severance of ties with BUHAY, whose representative Lito Atienza ran with Manny Pacquiao, last November 2021.
Aside from his large-scale involvement with the El Shaddai, Robles is a businessman as well, and has previously headed the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) under the Macapagal-Arroyo regime. During his term in 2009, a P400-million janitorial services contract was secured by the LRTA in cooperation with COMM Builders and Technology Philippines. He was later ordered arrested alongside 12 officials in 2017 over a graft case filed by state prosecutors. To provide further context, over P3 million was supposed to be paid to 321 deployed janitors in accordance with the contract; yet both firms reduced the minimum number of deployed janitors from 321 to 219, violating the contract.
Robles, alongside the others, was later acquitted in 2019 due to a supposed lack of evidence. Yet the same issues he has been charged with persists in the public transportation sector.
Despite his “ideal” appointment, his 2017 case of alleged graft and unquestioned loyalty to Marcos, Jr. raises a valid point of inquiry whether Robles will be able to uphold the PCSO’s mandate with transparency. It is worth questioning whether his “profitable” contributions would primarily correspond to the agency’s pro-people health initiatives and charities or if he will only be a liaison for worsened corruption and income-generation for the Marcoses.
PART 4:https://bit.ly/3zhUpNe
