Blas Ople’s legacy

Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2020 16:00:49 +0000

THE health issues buffeting the world community today are sure to create far-ranging global implications and will slowly affect the socio-economic condi­tion in countries already distressed by the menace. Experts expect the worse if the contagion is not contained. On the side, the fate of thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in regions where viral contaminations have been recorded will become collateral damage.

Amidst these challenges, people have forgotten that the brighter side of Filipino migration to over a hundred countries and territories in the last four decades is a tes­tament to the enduring legacy of the late eminent journalist and labor secretary Blas Ople, the first Filipino to head the Interna­tional Labor Organization (ILO).

Today’s generation may have very lim­ited knowledge about the man, but Ople envisioned that in solving the growing tide of unemployment, the Filipinos can share their talents and professional skills abroad and in return get hefty compensation for their efforts.

At a time when job demands in the islands were rising as fast the country’s population, Ople was unerring in his readings on how to address the unemployment. What he did not foresee, though, is the impact his idea would leave in making Filipino labor become a world-class manpower and, through the remittances of contract laborers, stabilize the nation’s dollar reserves.

With his stentorian voice and impeccable vocabulary, Ople, despite educational de­ficiency, roared with ideas that impressed even the Marcos leadership. He was a maverick who was not scared to test new grounds where Filipinos, given their innate talents, could excel; he always had this impeccable talent of looking at the brighter side of things.

But Ople’s other involvements lie in the many endeavors he was also involved.

As a labor secretary, he fathered many of the work concepts and practices that still survive to this day; as head of ILO, he pro­moted Filipino talent on the world stage.

As a journalist, he edited some of the leading papers of his time while mincing no words in exposing anomalies regardless who got the boot; he was brash as well as considerate.