PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte said there is nothing personal in his firing of Terry Ridon as chair of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP). He also sacked the other PCUP commissioners Melissa Aradanas, Joan Lagunda, Manuel Serra Jr. and Noe Indonto. Still, one gets the feeling this could be part of the ongoing purge of known militants who are now in government.
Ridon was formerly with the House of Representatives representing the militant party-list group Kabataan. But like many other activists who were bewitched by the Duterte personality in the May 2016 elections, Ridon supported the former Davao City mayor. A photo posted on social media showed him smiling while aping the Duterte fist salute side by side with the president.
Duterte appointed Ridon as PCUP chair in August last year. Since then, as the president would claim, he made seven trips (Duterte called it “junkets”) abroad, one of the president’s reasons for his firing. The other was Ridon and the other PCUP commissioners’ failure to hold meetings as a collegial body. One interesting point: Ridon and the others were sacked not for pocketing public money.
With Ridon out, only a few high-profile militants remain in the Duterte government. His firing followed the exits from the Cabinet of Judy Taguiwalo (social welfare and development) and Rafael Mariano (agrarian reform). Among the few that remain are former Gabriela party-list Rep. Liza Maza, lead convenor of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC); Luzviminda Ilagan, also a former Gabriela party-list representative who is currently undersecretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development; and Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod.
As expected, Ridon defended his record as PCUP chair. But I find one point that is interesting in his press statement. “All trips,” he said, “were covered by Travel Authorities issued by the Office of the President and recommended by the Office of the Cabinet Secretary involving international conferences relevant to the poor: poverty alleviation, public housing and climate change.”
The Office of the Cabinet Secretary is headed by the former activist priest Leoncio Evasco, who I reckon was also the one who recommended Ridon to the post. Evasco obviously didn’t have a hand in Ridon’s firing, which is not the first time that the president sacked a government functionary identified with him. Remember Halmen Valdez, who became collateral damage in the power struggle between Evasco and National Food authority (NFA) administrator Jason Aquino?
To be fair, I find the president’s reasons for firing Ridon compelling enough, that is if those are true. Like, how did those trips abroad directly impact on the urban poor in the country? But I could not also dismiss the possibility that this is part of the scheme of hawkish or rightist elements in the Duterte administration to ease out “leftists” now in government and eventually Evasco.
In the snake pit that is Malacañang, that can be done. You find fault and sow intrigues, or win over somebody who has the president’s ear and bingo, “your will be done.” As simple as that.