There’s really no one in the Senate that can equal Senator Risa Hontiveros in terms of rendering service to the Filipino people. A socialist feminist in a nest of trapos, she has been truly consistent in pushing progressive legislation since she joined the House of Representatives in the early 2000’s. When I joined the House as her colleague representing Akbayan in 2009, she provided an example to a neophyte congressman of how to navigate traditional politics while pushing progressive causes without compromising one’s principles. Over the years, we might have had some differences, but they were, in retrospect, insignificant. Her politics of principled pragmatism has resulted in at least 25 landmark laws, including the historic Expanded Maternity Leave Law (RA 11210), which gives working moms 105 days of paid maternity leave, and the Mental Health Law (RA 11036), which provides the first legal framework over mental health care in the country.
In 2024, she led the charge in the Senate to ban the infamous POGOs (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators) controlled by Chinese criminal gangs that took advantage of the protection offered by the previous Duterte administration. This led to the exposure of former Bamban Mayor Alice Guo and former Duterte spokesman Harry Roque as central figures in the expansion of the POGOs.
Hontiveros has also been the leading force calling for making former President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for the thousands of extra-judicial executions when he was president from 2016 to 2022. While practically all her colleagues tried to equivocate in the presence of Duterte, either initimidated or worried about his possible impact on their political careers, Hontiveros took down the former president in full public view. In the process, she got Duterte to admit he ran a death squad in Davao and was able to extract a rare apology from him for being foul-mouthed.
She is the real leader of the opposition in the Senate.
The Filipino people will eventually tire of the rigodon of corrupt dynastic politics that our politicians have inflicted on them, and when they reach that point, they’ll elect Risa Hontiveros president. My fearless forecast.
Walden Bello is currently the International Adjunct Professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton and Co-Chairperson of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South. He is the author or co-author of 25 books, including Counterrevolution: The Global Rise of the Far Right (Nova Scotia: Fernwood, 2019), Paper Dragons: China and the Next Crash (London: Bloomsbury/Zed, 2019), Food Wars (London: Verso, 2009) and Capitalism’s Last Stand? (London: Zed, 2013).
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate
