Blas F. Ople: A citizen of the world

Blas F. Ople, born to a poor family in Hagonoy, Bulacan, rose to become one of the country’s great statesmen and intellectuals. Through self-education and hard work, he became an accomplished journalist, teacher, writer, propagandist and labor unionist.

He helped draft the Constitution of 1987, and wrote 10 books.

As senator (two terms), he chaired the powerful Committee on Foreign Relations. He was elected Senate President in 1999. He was the first Asian to be elected President of the International Labor Organization Conference. Ople served in two Cabinet positions—Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Foreign Affairs. He died on December 14, 2003, while on a foreign mission. In this tribute, three former colleagues—Senators Ernesto Herrera, Sergio Osmeña 3rd and Orlando Mercado—remember Ka Blas, a citizen of the world, and the man they considered the Senate resident intellectual, on the second anniversary of his death.

Blas brought a wonderful humanity to politics

By Ernesto Herrera

The name Blas Ople conveys a lot of things to a lot of people: statesman, writer, journalist, hero, patriot and, for some, even adversary. To me, Blas was someone far more important. He was my friend: my dearest, most trusted and most loyal friend. And in the world of politics, where friendship, trust and loyalty are, most of the time, negotiable commodities, he was one of the few true friends I’ve ever had.

I met Blas before we shared the Senate session hall together as senators, long before the media dubbed us "Batman and Robin," after the famous comic-book dynamic duo.

Blas was a demigod in the labor movement when I was starting out as a labor organizer with the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines. He was the country’s longest serving labor minister, having been appointed by Marcos during the latter’s second term and staving on the job through the martial law years until the fall in 1986.

Even before we were formally introduced, I respected the fact that Blas started his career as a labor-welfare advocate like me. He was a good friend of the trade union movement, in fact, a unionist himself. Blas broke bread with a man we all respected in the labor sector, the great labor leader Cipriano Cid, who was also the editor of the Evening News.

Blas and I became fast friends even if I did not share his addiction to cigarettes, coffee and alcohol (he would eventually be able to conquer the last). Like many others, I was drawn by the man’s passion. Whatever the issue, whomever the person, Blas had a view that he strongly held, forcefully offered, and vigorously defended. Blas without an argument would have been like his favorite sarsaparilla without the fizz.

But Blas wasn’t one who would try to relentlessly pummel you with his brilliance for the sake of making an impression. He packaged his issues and ideas not so much for public consumption but for the public good.

Blas’s footprints would be forever imprinted on the labor sector. God knows what could have happened to Filipino workers’ rights and welfare if a different, less principled man was given the labor portfolio during Marcos’s time.

But Blas was the real thing. As much as he read (he was a library personified), his idea of patriotism did not come from a book. It was the essence of his life, the foundation that shaped and formed all his other convictions. You may disagree with his talk on certain issues, but never with his ideas, for he always put the interests of the country and the people first.

There was one incident that forever cemented my admiration for Blas. In October 1983, less than two months after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, I was one of five people appointed by Marcos to the Fact-Finding Commission created to determine who killed the former senator. The others were Dante Santos, the president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce Inc. and chair of the Philippine Appliance Corp., lawyer Luciano Salazar, lawyer Amado Dizon and retired Justice Corazon Agrava, who headed the Commission.

It was Blas who recommended me to Marcos to represent the labor sector. Marcos trusted Blas, and he knew Blas and I were like brothers. Yet throughout the arduous investigation, not once did Blas talk to me to ask what we were up to in the Commission, or much more, toward a particular position. He just told me to do the right thing.

When the four of us—Santos, Salazar, Dizon and I—submitted a separate report, dissenting from Agrava and putting the blame for Ninoy’s murder squarely on Gen. Fabian Ver (Marcos’s military) chief and his men, Marcos was naturally furious. But again, I never heard anything from Blas. He just told me to be careful.

In all the four decades I have been involved in politics as a legislator and as a workers’ advocate, I’ve seen how power corrupts, how even the prospect of power corrupts. I’ve seen what power does to those who wield it—how it changes them, how they lose control. The seduction of politics has consumed many an idealistic soul.

Blas was one of the few exceptions to that norm. At a time when it seemed everyone in the martial law regime wanted to climb the greasy pole of politics for power and money, Blas practiced politics as a means to restore the innate dignity of the common Filipino.

In an age when the majority of people dismiss anything that comes out of the mouths of politicians as rubbish, Blas’s words remind us of the potential good that can come out of politics when it is used as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

In the many positions he held in government—as labor minister, constitutionalist, senator and foreign minister—he did not merely seek to make better laws and policies, he sought to make lives better. He strove to make politics relevant, especially for those to whom it seemed remote: the people who are lacking in education or opportunities, people who reminded him of his humble beginnings. Indeed, he brought a wonderful humanity to politics.

Blas never profited from public service in the way people commonly think of now. His rewards were more spiritual. As a testament to his honesty, when the dictatorship was toppled, his house was in mortgage. Blas was probably the only public official close to Marcos who was financially in dire straits. Even Cory Aquino could not believe it.

Still, broke as he was after decades of being in the highest echelons of power, Blas was one of the few people who could have told me that politics had been his life, and that it had been a life worth living. And I would have believed him because, in his case, such a statement could never be truer.

Then again, he wasn’t one to brag. .

About the author: Ernesto Herrera served as senator and a member of the House of Representatives

Memories of Ka Blas

By Serge Osmeña III

I remember the first time I met Ka Blas. It was during the1995 election campaign. The candidates for the Senate of the Lakas-Laban coalition were on a sortie in Bulacan and the team was hosted by Ka Blas to a late dinner at his home in Hagonoy.

He was quite subdued and proper. Able to banter one minute and be deep in thought the next. He was not the fiery Ka Blas I had read about. I learned that he had suffered a stroke a year before, which slowed him down a bit.

I joined him in the Senate a few months later. He was aligned with the opposition group and we did not get to collaborate closely on legislative measures.

In 1998 I moved my constituency office to the Marbella Tower on Roxas Boulevard. It was located next to his office.

Ka Blas and I maintained late hours. Many a night, on my way out, I would notice his entire staff still at work. His office entrance was a glass door so a passerby could see what was going on inside. Once in a while I would pop in and ask his receptionist if he would care to receive an unexpected visitor. He was never too busy to visit with me.

Ka Blas seemed to work two shifts. During the day he would attend to his Senate duties with the mandatory break at noon for lunch and a shave at the Muni golf barbershop.

After sessions, he would repair to his Marbella office with his close-in staff. He would have his dinner watching CNN news on TV. Then undergo massage and physical therapy. Then write one or two of his eight weekly newspaper and magazine commentaries.

I inquired of him how he found the time to write so many columns. He explained his technique. While riding in his car, he would compose in his mind the outline of his article. Upon arrival at the office, he would type it out on his desktop computer. Like a brilliant man, his mind never seemed to stop. I suspect it still continued to function even while he was asleep.

I liked to tease his staff, especially his ever-loyal Mila and daughter Toots, if they received overtime pay. They cheerfully replied that they had long become used to his interminable work hours.

Ka Blas had the stamina of a bull. Many a night he would leave Marbella at 10 p.m. to drive to Bulacan to attend the wake of a political leader or of an old friend. He’d get home not earlier than 2 a.m.

Because we were among a handful in the Senate cursed by an addiction to nicotine, Ka Blas and I often found ourselves sitting together—at hearings, meetings, dinners and socials. We’d share an astray. I discovered he outsmoked me three to one. During one dinner reception, I counted the number of cigarettes I had consumed. Four. Ka Blas had 12. The filter tips of our cigarettes had different colors.

During his last year in the Senate, before he resigned to take on the Foreign Affairs portfolio, we were seated beside other. Ka Blas used to wear a barong every day. One day, he arrived at the session hall in a dashing black double-lit western suit. I ribbed him, "Ka Blas, mukhang management tayo ngayon." He liked that. Every time he came wearing a suit, he’d announce, "Management tayo ngayon." Ka Blas had served as Secretary of Labor for 20 years.

I missed out on the thunder years of Ka Blas’s political life. He never engaged me in long discussions, ideological or philosophical. Maybe he didn’t want to waste his time and energy on a philistine like me.

On the floor or in caucus, he would not speak long. Except when he delivered sponsorship speeches. But he was always able, in a few short sentences, to capture the essence of an issue and place it in the proper perspective. The depth of his knowledge and the breadth of his experience allowed him a wide-angle view, which he always shared with his colleagues. He was quite impressive at doing this. Many of the senators would leave the table muttering, "I never thought of it that way."

Every one knew that Ka Blas was the most widely read among the senators. And the most traveled. He observed, he learned, he analyzed and he absorbed. The true philosopher is described by Plato as a "spectator of all time and all existence." Ka Blas was our resident philosopher. He played a subtle but important role in the broadening the knowledge and honing the judgment of most, if not all, his colleagues.

Ka Blas and I did disagree on some issues but not too many. He sponsored and I opposed the Senate approval of the ratification of the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement.

I advocated the use of English as a medium of instruction. Ka Blas opposed it—being an heir of Balagtas.

I sponsored, and he opposed, the liberalization of the retail trade sector. Ka Blas stuck to his nationalist roots. He was not amused when I once teased him for wearing Bally shoes and using Mont Blanc fountain pens.

But Ka Blas was ever the statesman. He never took offense at those who took opposing views. And delighted in being teased. Friendships remained warm.

I was deeply saddened by the passing of Ka Blas. Even now, I sometimes drop by his office, (since taken over by his daughter, Toots) to say hello to his staff. I don’t enter his inner office. Perhaps I want to pretend he is still in there—reading a book, watching the TV news or writing his column.

There are people that you meet in life that you just take a liking to. Ka Blas was one person I liked very much. We enjoyed many light-hearted times together and I shall always be grateful for his friendship, tolerance, understanding and guidance. He made my years in legislative service so much more pleasant and fulfilling. I shall miss him.

About the author: Serge Osmeña 3rd is a senator of the Republic of the Philippines.

On Ka Blas Ople

By Orlando S. Mercado

The life span of a media man is relatively short. I guess that is because of our lifestyles and the pressures of deadlines that are part of the job. In the days when we used to drink to forget a lousy broadcast or to celebrate a good one, the National Press Club building was the place to go. It was cheap, and in the sixties and the seventies it was the place to swap jokes, brag and tell tall stories, get into an argument, and sometimes get involved in a fight.

I never had the privilege of going on a binge drinking session with Ka Blas but the stories told were oft repeated by the old timers. Never mind if it had been a number of decades that he had been a teetotaler. The Ka Blas I got to know was not the Ka Blas the Press Club old timers described to me. I was elected as opposition assemblyman in the regular Batasang Pambansa in May 1984. Those were the most exciting days of the nation’s roller-coaster political life. It was not quite a year since Sen. Ninoy Aquino’s assassination on August 21, 1983. Not many of us knew how the turbulent times would end.

Ka Blas was a longtime member of President Marcos’s Cabinet. This did not bother me. Somehow I saw Ka Blas in a different light. I knew he was a towering intellectual but with a pragmatic side.

I was drawn to him because of a common background. We both came from the Left. Our days as fire-breathing Marxists might have been over but a few friends provided a shared connection to the past. Mine was a Hagonoy-born former Communist Party politburo member: Ka Sammy Rodriguez.

I met Ka Sammy in 1973 when I was transferred from Camp Aguinaldo (where I was interrogated) to a detention complex at Fort Bonifacio benignly called the Ipil Reception Center.

Among us young activists, there were two original members of the Communist Party led by Luis Taruc whom we considered bearers of the Marxist ideals: Angel Baking and Sammy Rodriguez.

After Ka Sammy and myself were released, we kept in touch. I was able to return to television via a public-service program, Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko. Ka Sammy arranged for our medical team to go to Hagonoy to provide medical aid to the indigent barangays. Ka Sammy and the other prominent leaders invariably talked about Ka Blas, who was a native of Hagonoy. My admiration for Ka Blas grew after hearing kind words about him from his provincemates, especially from one I considered a mentor: Rodriguez.

So in 1984 when I would see Ka Blas regularly in the sessions of the Batasang Pambansa, it was like we were old friends in spite of our age difference.

When Ka Blas ran for the Senate in 1992, we were on the same team. Halfway through the physically taxing campaign Ka Blas lost his voice. His stentorian voice was reduced to a murmur after delivering too many speeches. This obviously aggravated by his constant smoking.

I felt proud when he asked me to deliver his campaign speech when his turn came. I did my job with so much gusto that he once remarked that maybe we should keep that arrangement throughout the campaign: he would simply acknowledge the audience’s cheers while I extolled his achievements to high heavens.

When he got back his voice, he made quite a blooper at a rally in Cebu City. We were all on the stage—the candidate for president, Speaker Monching Mitra, Chief Justice Celing Fernan, his running mate, and all the 24 senatorial hopefuls. When his turn to speak came, he ended his speech with the usual exhortation, saying, "At huwag ninyong kalilimutan ang tambalang Marcos-Fernan." After correcting himself, he sheepishly smiled as if to acknowledge that some old habits die hard.

It was in the Senate where Ka Blas repeatedly challenged us to think of the issues we were debating in a larger context. His favorite word was strategic. And indeed, he somehow succeeded in putting many of our discussions in a larger context.

While in the Senate, I went back to my alma mater, the University of the Philippines, to get a doctorate in political science. It was my chance to reread the works of great political theorists.

One day he noticed me reading Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan in the Senate lounge. In between incessant sips of coffee that he never seemed to stop drinking, he told me why he thought the social-contract theorists should he required reading for all who formulate and implement public policy. It was with Ka Blas that I could discuss political theory.

He was not "schooled" but was truly educated. His formal education was interrupted by more urgent and important endeavors but he continued to educate himself to the end. Blas Ople had a sharp mind, one which he must have constantly honed. He also had a great heart that went with his intellect. I consider myself lucky to have known a great Filipino.

About the author: Orlando S. Mercado was a member of the Philippine Senate and Secretary of Defense in the administration of President Joseph Estrada.