Faces of the News: September 29, 2024
Gloria Jumamil-Mercado
Former Education Undersecretary and procurement chief Gloria Jumamil-Mercado apologized in advance —then proceeded to drop a bombshell at a recent House hearing. She claimed she had received P50,000 in cash every month for nine months from Vice President Sara Duterte, then the concurrent education secretary. Without calling it a bribe, she said the money may have been intended to “influence” her decisions in the agency’s bidding process. “This is a very difficult thing to do and I apologize to my children who didn’t like me to join this session and also my colleagues, who are my friends, but I have to read my statement,” the 65-year-old career official said before reading out her affidavit to the House committee on good government and public accountability. She backed up her testimony by pulling out of a pouch what she claimed were the very envelopes that once contained the cash. She said she later decided to just donate the money—totaling P450,000—to an unnamed nongovernmental organization. —Jeanette I. Andrade
Anura Kumara Dissanayake
Anura Kumara Dissanayake got just 3 percent of the votes when he first ran for President of Sri Lanka in 2019. But on Sept. 21, targeting the same high office, he won by a landslide after securing 55.89 percent of the ballots cast. His promise to fight corruption and reduce poverty struck deep in a country struggling to rise out of an economic collapse. The leftist leader, who had been associated with two failed Marxist uprisings, connected with millions of Sri Lankans reeling from crippling austerity measures required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But many now fear that his victory puts Sri Lanka’s economic recovery in question. Still, Dissanayake assured the IMF and creditors that his government would honor its obligations while seeking a renegotiation aimed at making the loan terms less burdensome to his people. The outgoing president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, however warned that any changes to the terms required by the IMF could derail the release of $3 billion in additional loans and affect the country’s economic recovery and stability. —CENON BIBE JR.
Leila de Lima
After languishing in jail for almost seven years, former Sen. Leila de Lima is hoping to revive her political career by running for a party list seat in the next year’s midterm elections. In an announcement posted on her Facebook account, De Lima confirmed that she is running as the lead nominee of the Mamamayang Liberal (ML) party list, the sectoral representative of the Liberal Party. Former Ifugao Rep. Teddy Baguilat Jr. and former Quezon Rep. Erin Tañada will also be running as second and third nominees, respectively. “Walang atrasan, ituloy ang laban!” De Lima wrote. “We will champion with full fervor social justice causes.” Apart from being opposition figures during the Duterte administration, De Lima and Baguilat were part of former Vice President Leni Robredo’s senatorial slate in 2022, of which Tañada served as comanager. This is the second time that De Lima would be running for public office since being charged during the Duterte administration and eventually cleared of all the drug trafficking cases.—KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING
Miguel Zubiri and Alan Cayetano
Senate President Francis Escudero and his predecessor, Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, are set to hold a one-on-one meeting soon to discuss various issues, including how camaraderie among members of the chamber may still be improved. The meeting was set after Zubiri and Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano engaged in a shouting match and almost came to blows at the plenary hall on the night of Sept. 24. Caught on an amateur video, the altercation erupted over a Senate resolution seeking to ensure that voters in the so-called Embo barangays (now part of Taguig City after a Supreme Court ruling ordered their transfer from Makati’s jurisdiction) would not be disenfranchised in next year’s elections. Zubiri said he did not know that the resolution, which Cayetano authored, was supposed to be part of the day’s agenda. But tempers flared as Cayetano insisted that it be taken up (Taguig being his political bailiwick). After being restrained, and with the situation finally cooling down, both senators apologized to each other and to the body, with Zubiri calling it a “miscommunication that led to a misunderstanding.” —TINA G. SANTOS
Shegeru Ishiba
Shigeru Ishiba is set to become Japan’s next prime minister this week after his election as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Friday. Ishiba claimed a come-from-behind victory after besting Sanae Takaichi who was initially favored to take the LDP leadership and be the country’s first female prime minister. A former defense minister, Ishiba has proposed during his campaign the creation of an Asian North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nat0)—an alliance which has US-led defense networks as its backbone. After winning the party’s top post, Ishiba declared that the “essence of collective security becomes obligatory” with an Asian Nato, and added that collective defense was a “right.” Bloomberg, however, reported that the United States and China had both frowned upon that idea. Beijing opposes any kind of security alliance between the US and its Asian allies, while Washington reportedly reiterated that it was not interested in creating any formal version of Nato in the region. —CENON BIBE JR.
