‘One of us’ at helm of DENR

When President Arroyo announced the relief of Sonny Alvarez and the appointment of Elisea "Bebet" Gillera Gozun as his replacement, our collective reaction was, "who’s she?" The only thing Malacañang ever said by way of background was that she was an NGO leader.

When Bobi Tiglao showed up last week at EDSA Plaza’s Tuesday Club, our question was, who’s this Gozun? My Publisher, Max Soliven asked Bobi to invite her to join us just so we could get an idea who is this lady who is entrusted with so important a function as the responsibility for safeguarding our environment, most specially, the air we breathe.

Bobi whispered to me that maybe I knew Bebet from the old days at UP because she had been active in the student movement of the 70s. I couldn’t place her name or face so I figured she must have been there after I left the scene. But I told myself that if she is a veteran of the First Quarter Storm, she should be starkly different from the guys who had been on top of DENR.

Over lunch that same Tuesday, Gary Olivar mentioned that "we are going to have a testimonial dinner in honor of Bebet this evening." I got myself invited. "We" turned out to be familiar names from our Diliman days, a mixed bag of leftist student activists and friendly fence-sitters like Doy Vea, the low key SMART telecoms entrepreneur who also turned out to be the most financially successful of us all.

It was the first time I met Bebet and she strikes me as one who is not only well prepared to take on the tasks before her, she is also very committed in an ordinary citizen kind of way we cannot expect from the previous occupants of the post. She also came across as one who can be described as a middle class professional who just wants to make a difference for this country. In other words, she is one of us, in contrast to being one of them, a politician.

Her husband, she said, couldn’t join us that evening because he has emphysema. He needs a bottle of oxygen when he goes around and that limits his movements. He got his disease from years of smoking and aggravated by inhaling Metro Manila’s foul air. Heaven knows we should all be carrying oxygen bottles around if we know what is good for us. Someone quipped that inhaling Metro Manila’s air is tantamount to committing suicide.

Well, at least I got my first reassurance of the evening that this lady will not relent in the implementation of the Clean Air Act, if only because her husband’s life depends on it. I was further reassured when she said she led the forces that exposed the plot to suspend the provisions of the Clean Air Act on the request of the oil companies. As DENR secretary, she plans to be unrelenting in the effort to clean up the air we breathe.

I took a look at her information sheet and got my second reassurance of the evening. She had been active in community based environmental efforts. So experienced is she in this area that she is a recognized international expert whose services had been used by international organizations including the World Bank and the ADB and countries like most recently, Vietnam.

She’s from Davao, so that helps in the geographical representation in the Cabinet. She has worked in government as a career technical staff under Sonny Dominguez, Monching Mitra and Jun Factoran. She has also managed some family businesses from poultry to bangus fishpens and a sugar farm, so that should give her first hand experience that should help her regulate businesses.

Ultimately however, the proof of how good she is depends on how she performs under extreme pressure from all sectors. What gives me confidence in her however, is that she is "one of us." I fully expect her to look out for our interest and make use of the power she now has to help realize the lofty goals of the NGOs she has worked with all her life.

My gut feel tells me President Arroyo made a good appointment this time. Who’s she? She’ll let us know soon enough!

National Unity government

Speaker Jose de Venecia had always advocated a national unity government even after he lost the election to Erap. He talked about this dream of his again when we had lunch last Thursday at his home. I had been skeptical about this proposal if only because I doubt the ability of Pinoy politicians to put personal agenda aside and work together for the common good.

I still don‚t think Manong Joe’s proposal will get anywhere. But I will agree with him that we do urgently need something like this to prevent a larger national catastrophe from coming upon us. If you are a regular reader of Manila papers, you will no doubt be disturbed by the thought that we are obviously in a state of crisis but our leaders act and talk as if it is business as usual.

Manong Joe proposes that the President continues with her Cabinet revamp and appoint opposition figures as well so that politics could be made to take the backseat as we address the crisis we face. We should, he said, be united in dealing with the fiscal deficit problem, negotiating peace pacts with the NDF and the MILF, building four million homes for the homeless and creating four million jobs as earlier promised to fight worsening poverty level.

Sometimes, Manong Joe amazes me. He is the symbol of the consummate politician but he is also the consummate dreamer. I don’t think this pipe dream of his is ever going to happen, no matter how urgent and necessary it is for something like this to happen. "Look, Boo," he said with a sigh of resignation, "I can’t think of any other way of neutralizing the political poison in the air."

I guess, he is right, too. We simply can’t get anywhere until we eliminate the poison out there. But we no longer know the meaning of the word "trust" and we have lost all confidence, even confidence in our ability to rise from our snake pit of a country.

The idea of a coalition government sounds good. As good as the idea of a Santa Claus bringing us gifts because he is supposed to.

Perish the thought

Now, here’s Dr. Ernie E., who now probably secretly wishes he was a gynecologist rather than an orthopedic surgeon.

The young blonde bride made her first appointment with a gynecologist and told him that she and her husband wished to start a family.

"We’ve been trying for months now, doctor, and I don’t seem to be able to get pregnant," she confessed miserably.

"I’m sure we’ll solve your problem," the doctor reassured her. "If you’ll just take off your clothes and get up on the examining table, I’d be right back."

"Well, all right, doctor," agreed the young woman, blushing, "but I’d rather have my husband’s baby."

(Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected])