Ople accepts DFA post

Sen. Blas Ople is the new foreign affairs secretary.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye announced last night that Ople has accepted President Arroyo’s invitation to join her Cabinet as head of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Mrs. Arroyo assumed the post of foreign affairs secretary in a concurrent capacity on July 15 following the resignation of Vice President Teofisto Guingona as DFA chief over policy differences.

STAR sources strongly hinted Ople may assume the post in two months’ time.

The announcement of Ople’s acceptance was made after a 90-minute dinner he had with the President at Malacañang.

"The President has formally invited Senator Ople to become her new foreign affairs secretary," Bunye said, quoting from a prepared presidential statement.

"Senator Ople has gratefully accepted her invitation and will commence his duties in the very near future," Mrs. Arroyo said in the statement.

Ople’s acceptance of the foreign affairs post effectively decimates the Senate opposition and decisively resolves the impasse in the chamber. Ople’s defection, together with that of Sen. Robert Jaworski last Sunday, gives the administration bloc a 13-10 majority.

"I have come to the conclusion that I can best serve the country as a member of the Cabinet of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, handling the portfolio of foreign affairs," Bunye quoted Ople statement.

"There was, therefore, little in this appointment that is politically contrived or motivated by partisanship," Ople said.

"But the time has come to buckle down to work. I look forward to an exciting time of leading the DFA under the inspired leadership of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to new heights of achievement in building a strong Republic with the help of our allies throughout the world," he said.

Ople also called on his fellow senators to keep the Senate "one of the greatest institutions and a bulwark of the Constitution and civil liberties in the country."

Rep. Willie Villarama (Aksyong Demokratiko, Bulacan), said the President "transcended narrow partisan interests" by offering Ople the post. "The senator is the perfect choice for the job. His mastery of foreign policy and sensitivity to the concerns of overseas Filipino workers would be hard to match," he said.

Villarama, Ople’s former chief of staff, said Ople’s critics in the civil society "may be in for a pleasant surprise."

Bunye was prevailed by Palace reporters to read the presidential statement which was supposed to be read only today.

Malacañang reporters were angered by the move of the Presidential Security Guards to allow Ople and his entourage to evade reporters by permitting them to exit through another Palace gate not used by Palace visitors.

Bunye, in an apparent bid to pacify the Malacañang reporters, also read a statement from Ople.

Ople said he was leaving the Senate "only with greatest reluctance but comforted by the thought that as a treaty-ratifying chamber of Congress, the Senate will be a valued and respected partner." He was apparently alluding to the possibility that the Mutual Logistics and Support Agreement (MLSA) may have to pass through the Senate.

The statement could also be perceived as an attempt to steer the successful passage of any international treaty that needs Senate ratification.

Ople thanked the President for her "expression of confidence and trust" by appointing him to the DFA. He also expressed gratitude to the overseas Filipino workers for their "spontaneous show of support," an obvious allusion to the full-paged advertisement that appeared in major newspapers for several days.

He also took time to tell "skeptics and critics" that they "help public servants to be on their toes" through their barrage of criticisms.

The 75-year-old Ople noted that the "past few days filled with drama which nobody intended" have finally come to an end, a reference to the drawn-out and secretive negotiations that led to his appointment as DFA secretary. Presidential emissaries reportedly flew to the US to convince him to accept the post.

On July 9, Ople strongly implied he was ready to become the next foreign affairs secretary after fulfilling a promise to his anti-administration colleagues that he will vote with them for a new Senate majority when the congressional session resumes July 22.

"It is the job that is seeking me," Ople said at the time. The statement was meant to parry criticism that he was an "opportunist."

Ople, chairman of the Senate committee on foreign relations, has once said that he will be a good citizen and "obey a sovereign order" of the President if ever she officially asks him to succeed Guingona at the DFA.

The move of the President to woo Ople into her camp was widely perceived as a ploy to weaken the opposition’s hold on the Senate.

If Ople were to accept the post, he has to resign his Senate seat. His resignation will return to the administration control of the Senate via the 13-10 slim majority.

Earlier, Ople disclosed that the President had made an offer to him as early as December last year to become the DFA secretary.

"I believe that the President as early as that time had premonitions of a less compatible relationship with" Guingona, he said.

Ople said the matter was broached by Mrs. Arroyo during a private dinner in Malacañang, during which the presidential adviser on media relations, Dante Ang, was the only other person present.

"I said then that since there was no vacancy in the office of foreign secretary, we could discuss the matter later," Ople wrote in his column.

"This recollection helps illuminate the fact that my proposed appointment was not related to any dark scheme at the political manipulation of the Senate. I felt it my duty to reveal this incident in fairness to the President who apparently shares my own concern that the sincerity of her offer and my own political credibility could be put in doubt if it was seen as related to the political struggle in the Senate," he said in his column.

Ople had cited his compatibility with the President, even recalling that both of them co-sponsored the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade treaty.

The President, who was a senator at the time, "stood faithfully behind (him), giving her full support" when he sponsored the Visiting Forces Agreement, Ople recalled. "I think there is no point in worrying about our compatibility on fundamental matters of state," he said.

Mrs. Arroyo and Guingona had publicly feuded on policy differences, notably on the return of the US troops in the country through the joint RP-US Balikatan 01-2 anti-terror military exercise, and privately on the legality of the MLSA as an executive agreement.

Ople, irked by statements that he was being coopted by the President, had said in the past "it is not fair to put the whole onus of keeping the Senate opposition intact" on his shoulders alone.

"I am not the leader of the opposition but a mere cog in the LDP wheel. Why should the burden of keeping the opposition together fall on my shoulders as a plain member of the opposition party," Ople said.