A whole-day jobs fair, mobile passport service and gift-giving program are also scheduled in Hagonoy, Bulacan for the senator’s beloved townmates, courtesy of Hagonoy Mayor Felix Ople.
"At this time of political strife, his eloquence and wisdom are sorely missed," former undersecretary Susan Ople of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center said.
Secretary Ople would have been among the first to advise the administration to desist from revising the Constitution in haste and through questionable means, his youngest daughter said.
The former constitutional commissioner, senator and foreign affairs secretary would never have agreed to hasty shortcuts to constitutional change.
As if commenting on recent events, Ople, when he was still a senator in 1993, wrote: "From time to time, Filipino leaders discover panaceas to the nation’s ills, an easy way out of our social and political dilemmas and intractable problems. To this category belongs the now vociferous demand for an immediate change of the form of government from presidential to parliamentary, from a bicameral to a unicameral legislature. Listening to its proponents, this might be the talisman to solve all the crises confronting the nation. One advantage of this approach is that the nation’s chronic failures… can be charged to a system, not to our elected leaders."
He had also warned: "Constitution-rigging to serve the ends of power will diminish the legitimacy of the existing government and create vacuums to tempt new military adventurers to consider new coup attempts. The resulting political instability will repel both domestic and foreign investments and probably impel a massive capital flight to safe havens in Southeast Asia."
Ople was one of the 45 Constitutional Commission members who drafted the 1986 Constitution that was overwhelmingly ratified by the people in 1987.
He authored many of its far-reaching provisions, including the people’s initiative mode of amending the Charter, giving education the highest budget priority, and widening the scope of the Bill of Rights.
In the 1990s, he was the first among public figures to warn the nation against the plot to change the Constitution so that then President Fidel Ramos and his political allies could stay in power beyond their allotted term. Ople opposed the PIRMA campaign to rewrite the Constitution.
When he was labor secretary, Ople fathered the Labor Code of 1974 to protect the rights of Filipino workers under martial law.
He was the prime architect of the Philippine overseas employment program, having initiated the sending of skilled workers to Saudi Arabia at the height of its construction boom.
He also created and strengthened the labor attaché program in the Department of Labor to upgrade the protection of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)
As secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ople led the department in ensuring that the protection of OFWs became a cornerstone of Philippine democracy.
Ople died on Dec. 14, 2003 in a hospital in Taiwan while on a mission for his country. To pursue his agenda on labor and employment, the Blas F. Ople Policy Center was created in 2004 by his family.
Expected to attend today’s Mass are Labor Secretary Arturo Brion and former labor secretaries Patricia Sto. Tomas and Benny Laguesma, as well as family friends and associates from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Labor and Employment and the Senate.