An unusual arrangement

Presidential Political Adviser Ronald Llamas is a most unusual man in an unusual post. He is not a politician, and has not run for public office. He provides political advice, gathers political intelligence, and develops working relations with the other branches of government for a President who defies “typical” expectations of a political leader.

Given P-Noy’s “non-traditional” origins and instincts, conventional wisdom would dictate that he would take for his political adviser someone more seasoned in political wheeling-and-dealing, someone who shares some “history” with politicians, or at the very least a member of his own party, the Liberal Party, or any political party, for that matter.

So perhaps Llamas’ appointment as head of the Office of the Political Adviser says as much about the appointing power as it does about Llamas himself. While not a politician in the traditional sense, Llamas is certainly a political animal. While he does not belong to a political party, he helped found and heads Akbayan, a party-list group identified with leftist causes but more strictly defined as social democratic. And his involvements have more to do with civil society concerns—foreign debt, agrarian reform, peasant and labor organizing—than with party politics or legislative wrangling.

Clearly, then, in choosing Llamas as political adviser, the President sought not someone who would schmooze his way through political circles (P-Noy already enjoys enough power to deal with recalcitrants, and there are enough politicians in his circle), but provide him with an alternative view to events and looming policy clashes, someone who can call on an alternate set of sources for information, analysis and calculation.

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A journalism graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, Llamas never got to practice the profession he trained for. Even as a student, he found himself embroiled in campus politics and upon graduation he went into organizing labor groups and farmers.

A most memorable engagement, he tells a group of media women he meets over dinner, was when he helped organize cooperatives for rubber plantation employees in Basilan. The Abu Sayyaf was only then emerging, he recalls, but there was remarkably little conflict even as the rubber coops were made up of Muslims and Christians, indigenous peoples, farmers and ex-combatants.

Perhaps his time in Mindanao equips him to assess the chances for success of the ongoing peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). He shares the government panel’s reluctance to commit to the demand for a Muslim “substate,” saying that basic reforms need to be carried out first not just within the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao but within the Muslim community and leadership structure.

“Federalism right now is not feasible,” he reasons. “Unless we address the power wielded by clans and power blocs, we would end up federalizing warlordism.”

Such talk isn’t exactly, ahh, judicious for a presidential adviser who must deal day-to-day with warlords and political overlords, or politicians who style themselves as such. But Llamas clearly doesn’t believe in maintaining the status quo, in step with the President’s own agenda for reform and transformation. One unconventional politician deserves an unconventional adviser.

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“No woman should die giving life” is the slogan emblazoned on the back cover of the notebook I am currently using, a giveaway of the UN Population Fund.

It’s a slogan that I would think most everyone would agree with, unless one believes that it is only “natural” or worse, “right” that women should die as a consequence of getting pregnant or giving birth.

Still, I cannot believe that a senator, backed up by a group that goes by the ironic name “Filipinos for Life,” ridicules the claim of supporters of the reproductive health bill that up to 11 women die each day due to causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. The anti-RH group cautioned “against excessive emotional use of the outdated statistic to influence Philippine government policy,” claiming that the more accurate figure for maternal mortality in the country should be 4.8 to 8.3 deaths a day.

What scandalizes me is not that the daily toll of maternal deaths has purportedly been exaggerated, but that “Filipinos for Life” could cite the “lower” figure without expressing some form of grief or anger that even one mother should still be dying while pregnant or giving birth in this day and age.

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Still, Likhaan, an NGO engaged in both reproductive health advocacy and direct service provision, has challenged the “lower” estimate, saying that this is based on a wrong assumption about 2008 data from the National Statistics Office and the National Statistical Coordination Board. The calculation was made using the number of registered live births, Likhaan said, when even the NSO says “the number of registered live births is lower than the actual number … due to late and non-registration,” as well as to the deaths of babies before they reach their first birthday, which means they would not be counted in a census.

Taking all the factors into consideration, said Likhaan, the current estimate for maternal mortality is 6.5 to 11.1 deaths per day.

Still, says Likhaan, “whether the exact figure is at the lower, central or upper part of the estimate, the important point is to responsibly create policies that would eliminate preventable maternal deaths. Low to high income countries have shown this to be doable. Falsely accusing RH advocates of using outdated data, quibbling about the numbers or callously asking for death certificates as proof will only obstruct the crafting of workable solutions to maternal deaths.”