The Ramon Magsaysay Award is given to persons – regardless of race, nationality, creed or gender — who address issues of human development in Asia with courage and creativity, and in doing so have made contributions which have transformed their societies for the better.

Source: RMAF. “History”. Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. ND. http://www.rmaf.org.ph/index.php?task=3. Accessed July 26, 2009.

It is often regarded as Asia’s Nobel Prize.

Below is the citation for Gov. Grace Padaca when she received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service in 2008.

*****

Elections are the central institution of Filipino democracy. As Governor Grace Padaca puts it, they give voters a chance “to get the wrong people out of government and the right people in.” In practice, however, Filipino elections are almost always contests for power among an elite few. In most provinces, a handful of families controls political power from one generation to the next. Everyone else may vote, but the choices are limited to a cast of all-too-familiar characters. Such was the case in Isabela Province when Governor Padaca launched her unlikely political career.

Maria Gracia Cielo Magno Padaca was born in 1963 and crippled early in childhood by polio. Taunted by other children, she retreated into a world of books and learned to excel at school. She won scholarships to help pay her own way and, by twenty-one, had qualified as a certified public accountant. At Bombo Radyo in Cauayan, Isabela, she took an accounting job and, almost serendipitously, was soon a broadcaster, too. This suited her, she says, because “I could be heard but not seen.”

Every day, for the next fourteen years, hardhitting “Bombo Grace” took up the issues of the day over the radio. In Isabela, the Dy family controlled politics from the governor’s mansion to the smallest town. As day-by-day Padaca exposed the province’s intractable problems-a stagnating rural economy, multifaceted corruption, a plague of illegal gambling and logging, a ravaged environment-she came to believe that many of them were rooted in the intractable Dys. Yet few dared to challenge them. “This is not what I had been taught democracy should be,” she said. Vowing not to be someone who complained constantly “without lifting a finger,” in 2001 she ran for Congress.

With little money and no political base to speak of, Padaca crisscrossed the province in a borrowed truck, taking her case to the people. Her opponent from the ruling dynasty was declared the winner by forty-eight votes-this after a congressional election tribunal invalidated all the ballots marked “Grace.”

Padaca returned to the fray in 2004 to run for provincial governor. Her opponent was the incumbent, whose father and brother had also been governor. Bucking the opposition of thirty-three mayors and the hysterical charge that she was in league with terrorists, Padaca urged voters to “Free Isabela.” On election day-as her volunteers guarded the ballot boxes-they did. She won by more than forty-four thousand votes.

This was “the easy part,” Padaca says. As governor, she moved quickly to neutralize efforts by Dy loyalists to sabotage her governorship and astutely prioritized her agenda. She paid off two-thirds of the province’s huge debts and restored its fiscal credibility. She abandoned a bankrupt medical scheme for a sounder government-backed plan. And she launched a program to subsidize rice and corn farmers. These programs yielded fresh funds for new infrastructure, better medical coverage for more beneficiaries, and a boon for the province’s farmers and agribusiness sector. Meanwhile, Padaca increased the budgets for education and reforestation and made inroads against illegal logging and gambling. With the province on a healthy footing, she challenged the dynasty again in 2007 and was elected to a second term.

As she pursues her ambitious agenda today, Governor Grace stays in close touch with her constituents. She challenges them to reach beyond their political comfort zones and to “defend what is good in society.” She reminds them that the people of Isabela are no longer “the victims of cheaters and opportunists.” Her victory is their victory, she says. “I will work every day to prove that democracy is the better choice.”

In electing Grace Padaca to receive the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes her empowering voters in the Philippines’ Isabela Province to reclaim their democratic right to elect leaders of their own choosing and to contribute as full partners in their own development.

Source: RMAF. “CITATION for Grace Padaca.” Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. 31 August 2008. http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Citation/CitationPadacaGra.htm. Accessed July 26, 2009.

Kung iiwan ko man ang Isabela, mayroong mga tumatawag sa akin sa posis yong nasyonal. Hindi lang sa Senado, hindi lang sa pagka-Pangalawang Pangulo. Ang tanong ko ay kailangan ba? Ang dami namang ibang pagpipilian. Sa amin sa Isabela noon ay wala kasing iba. Pero ngayon, sa pambansa, ay marami namang iba. Kailangan pa ba? – Grace Padaca

Kahit sana mas masaya ako sa aking nakasanayang simpleng buhay, iniwan ko pa rin ito, mahigit limang taon na ang nakakaraan, para pumasok sa masalimuot, mahirap at matrabahong mundo ng pamamahala.

Noong una akong kumandidato sa pagka-gobernador ng Isabela, umuwi pa ako noon mula sa aking magandang trabaho bilang isang accountant sa Hacienda Bigaa sa Calatagan, Batangas para mag-file ng aking certificate of candidacy. Disyembre noon at pagkatapos ay bumalik pa rin ako sa aking tahimik na buhay kasi Abril pa naman noon ang kampanya.

Sabi ko, ano ba naman ang 45 araw lang na ibibigay ko sa aming lalawigan para lang may patuloy na lumaban sa mga maling nangyayari. Kahit matalo, ang mahalaga hindi kami sumusuko.

Tanggap ko na baka kailangan pa naming dumaan sa tatlo hanggang apat na eleksyon bago kami manalo, pero sa gulat na ming lahat, tinalo ko ang mga higante sa aming lalawigan, at nagkaroon ng kauna-una hang babaeng gobernador ang Isabela. Nagkaroon ng bagong pangalan sa kapitolyo na hindi na Dy kung hindi Padaca, pagkaraan ng mahigit 30 taon.

***

Taong 2007, eleksyon uli. Ilang araw na lang deadline na ng pag-file ng certificate of candidacy. Muli, kahit umiiyak ako, pinirmahan ko muli ang isa na namang certificate of candidacy para tumakbo bilang gobernador. Hindi puwedeng parang patalastas lang o intermission ang tatlong taon na lumaya kami sa dinastiya at pagkatapos ay babawiin na naman nila ito kung hindi ako kakandidato, lalo na’t naranasan na namin kung paanong ang kapangyarihan pala sa pamahalaan ay napakara ming magagawa kung ito ay gagamiting tunay para sa mga tao at hindi sasarilinin lamang ng mga pulitiko at ng kanilang iba’t ibang pamilya.

Umiiyak ako noon dahil alam ko na kung gaano kahirap ang buhay ng mga gustong tapat na maglingkod. Iyong magtrabaho nang hanggang hatinggabi dahil kung hindi mo ito gagawin ay matatambakan ka ng mga gagawin.

Ang dami kasing gustong pumunta sa iyo, samantalahin ang pagkakataon na sa wakas ay mayroon nang gobernador na deretsang nakakausap ng mga taga-barangay. Sa kaso ko, kinailangan ko ring asikasuhin pati na ang mga taga-ibang lalawigan na nakiusap na ikwento ko sa kanila, ituro kung paanong ang pilay na katulad ko ay nakasipa sa mga makapangyarihang trapo. Sa panig naman ng mga tinalo ko, hindi na nila ako tinantanan ng lahat ng uri ng pang-iinsulto, paninira at pang-aalipusta damay pati nanay ko at pamilya.

Wala na ang tahimik kong buhay. “Bakit ko gagawin na naman ito, alam ko na kung gaano kahirap?” Pero alam ko rin naman ang sagot — dahil kailangan pa. Dahil hindi ko puwedeng talikuran ang aking mga kababayan pagkatapos na iangat ko ang kanilang pag-asa at ang antas ng pamamahala sa ating lalawigan.

***

Malapit na muli ang halalan. Sa lalawigan namin sa Isabela, mayroon naman nang puwedeng pagpilian bukod sa akin na lalaban sa mga dinastiyang sabik at desperado nang makabalik. Dati kasi, wala kahit na isa, kaya ako ang kinaila ngang bumangga. Ngayon ay mayroong isa sa kanila na puwede kong asahan at pagkatiwalaan. Puwede na kaya akong umalis?

Kung iiwan ko man ang Isabela, mayroong mga tumatawag sa akin sa posis yong nasyonal. Hindi lang sa Senado, hindi lang sa pagka-Pangalawang Pangulo. Ang tanong ko ay kailangan ba? Ang dami namang ibang pagpipilian. Sa amin sa Isa b ela noon ay wala kasing iba. Pero ngayon, sa pambansa, ay marami namang iba. Kailangan pa ba?

Puwede po bang tulungan n’yo akong pag-aralan ang bagay na ito? Sana ay malaman ko ang sagot n’yo, sa pamamagitan ng text 0919-353-3222 o sa gracempadaca@yahoo.com. Salamat po.

Source: Padaca, Grace. “Kailangan Ba?” Abante-Tonite, 22 July 2009. http://www.abante-tonite.com/issue/july2209/opinions_kaya.htm. Accessed 27 July 2009.

Grace looks straight at the camera. The room is quiet. She tells her story, she says, again and again, to anyone who will listen. “It’s not always a happy ending, because the story is always continuing. It’s important to tell the story, because we have our own lives, our own lessons, and we can’t live each others’ lives to learn each others’ lessons.

“I am Grace Padaca. I share my story because I know there are many who are like me, not big people, not rich, not strong. I know there are many like me whose strength is inside.” – Patricia Evangelista, Inquirer

As it happens, I am sitting on the floor of a Makati hotel room, flush against a row of red and green cardboard boxes, each box marked and labeled and stuffed with printed pages and faxed letters and folders-within-folders. I am told the governor never travels the seven hours from Isabela without bringing along the workings of the capitol. There are newspapers piled haphazardly on a suitcase, along with four tissue-wrapped, beribboned bouquets the size of small trees blooming with white and orange and red, red blossoms. Adonis, my gaffer, sets up the redhead lights by the big open window. Fresh tapes are handed to the two men handling the cameras. I sit on my square of floor, beside coils of cable, and watch the small, smiling woman in the black-and-white striped T-shirt make her ungainly way across the room, her crutches making small round marks on the carpet.

She tells her story after the cameras begin rolling. Her name is Grace Padaca.

Grace contracted polio in 1966, three years before the vaccine became available to the public. Polio is a viral disease, paralyzing muscles, holding hostage limbs, stopping growth even as the rest of the body grows and develops. In the governor’s case, her legs are smaller, her right arm weaker.

“I always wanted to have a job in radio. I knew if I had a radio job, people would hear me and not see me.” For 14 years, Grace became known as Bombo Grace.

In the year 2000, during the Y2k hype, when the world was talking about new beginnings for the new millennium, Grace quit radio that year, and for the first time practiced her profession as an accountant. She was working as an auditor for the Commission on Audit when she decided to run for Congress.

“We always tell our people that one thing is wrong, but where’s their alternative? If this is wrong, where is right?”

Filing for candidacy meant automatic resignation from her government job. When it became public that Bombo Grace was going to be running for office, donations began to trickle in. Here are the images: A photocopied poster, asking the public to throw in their lot with Bombo Grace. A grinning Grace, short legs a foot from a dirt path, riding on a makeshift hammock slung over a long length of bamboo carried by men with skin burned by years of sun. Grace, pink shirt with her name emblazoned in blue, laughing with the crowd. Grace, in a red shirt and a white baseball cap, sitting on a wooden cart pulled by a carabao while her supporters walked behind her. Yellow-shirted, smiling Grace, leaning on crutches at the foot of a bus, smiling while cameras flashed and hands in the crowd rose in approval.

“I didn’t have my own color. You know how other candidates would have their own—if you saw this candidate walk by in blue, you’d know who he is. The one in red was always in red. I didn’t have a specific color, because I’d take whatever color T-shirt would be donated.”

The members of the ruling dynasty began to talk notice. “They laughed at me,” she says, and shakes her head ruefully. “And I didn’t blame them. Who is this Grace, this cripple who cannot walk but insists on running? I’m not surprised they laughed, my situation was really funny. They didn’t mind me until the day of the counting. Then the votes poured in for me. At the last minute they changed the votes. I can say that right now, before the whole country—they changed the votes. And I have the documents of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal to prove that. I made it all the way to Manila to fight for my case even if I didn’t have money.

“We reached the point where it came out that the votes were changed, because when my rival was proclaimed, Faustino Dy the Third, Congressman for District Three of Isabela, he was supposed to have had 1,200 votes ahead of me, but when all the votes were counted again, and the ballot boxes were all opened, those 1,200 votes became 48. But they didn’t count in my favor 150 ballots, because the name my people put down was the name ‘Grace.’ The tribunal had me on technicals. They said that my name was Maria Gracia Cielo. Nothing in that name says Grace. The nickname I put down was Bombo Grace, because that was my name in radio. So when people wrote down Bombo Grace, they said it was wrong, it should have been Bombo Grace. It was stupid, who else is Grace? Is Grace similar to Bodjie, who is Faustino Dy the Third? Should there be a confusion whether that vote should be for Bodjie or Bombo Grace? They found a way.”

What was left of the Isabela opposition took heart in her recent almost-victory. In 2004, Grace ran for governor reluctantly. The patriarch of the Dy family, Faustino Dy Jr., the older brother of the man who had beaten her in the congressional elections, was again running for governor. To have Dy run as governor essentially meant, according to oppositionists who were convincing her to run, that all other local positions would also be captured during the elections. Dy had no competitors. “It meant he would win automatically, even a dog voted for him, even if one person voted for him, even if just his housemaid voted for him, he would win as governor.”

She knew she was bound to lose. She had already received a scholarship to study in the United States from Ford Foundation. She was willing to lose 45 days of her life campaigning to give Dy Jr., a fight enough to distract him from the rest of the opposition who wanted a chance at the other positions. Grace went back to the campaign trail. “I knew I was going to lose—but then, I won.”

The streamers were carried to the streets. “Isabela, you are now free.”

Grace won by 44,000 votes, a number she says would have been impossible to cheat. The Dys took another tactic, and tried to stall her proclamation as governor. They said she was part of the New People’s Army. It was a long time before she was proclaimed.

In 2007, Grace ran again, this time winning by 17,000. “It was less than what I had, but I’m prouder of this victory than of the 2004 elections. The first time, they voted for me, it was a gamble on their parts. It was a protest vote against the reigning dynasty, whoever went up against it would have that vote. It was not me. Then there was the telenovela effect—“Poor Grace, crippled and still fighting.” When I was governor, I was the most powerful woman in the province. I was no longer the underdog. I had three years to be judged.”

Grace beat the dynasty again.

Grace looks straight at the camera. The room is quiet. She tells her story, she says, again and again, to anyone who will listen. “It’s not always a happy ending, because the story is always continuing. It’s important to tell the story, because we have our own lives, our own lessons, and we can’t live each others’ lives to learn each others’ lessons.

“I am Grace Padaca. I share my story because I know there are many who are like me, not big people, not rich, not strong. I know there are many like me whose strength is inside.”

She laughs. When the cameras stop rolling, Bombo Grace picks up the phone to continue the business of running Isabela.

Source: Evangelista, Patricia. “Rebel without a Clue: The Giant.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 04 October 2008. http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20081004-164631/The_giant. Accessed 26 July 2009.

Perez said that after 16 years of work as a forest advocate, he was gratified that the most successful campaign of all was organized without foreign funding. “Tayo-tayo lang ito,” he said. He said that the critical factor was the leadership of Padaca. “She gave it moral force, will and credibility,” Perez said. Having known the activist through years of often frustrating anti-logging campaigning, I know that he doesn’t make that kind of assessment of politicians lightly. – Howie G. Severino, GMA News.TV

SAN MARIANO, Isabela — Seen from the air, the evidence was clear-cut.

Jagged roads running through the green mountainsides ended in ugly brown gashes — torn up ground that marked where trees once stood. In the rivers floated fleets of freshly cut logs. In assorted compounds lay vast piles of wood. It was a comprehensive aerial view of rampant illegal logging in the Northern Sierra Madre mountain range.

When I flew over this forest last year, I was with the provincial governor, Grace Padaca, her NGO allies, and military officers who took in the environmental destruction below with the determined gaze of war planners.

My own attitude bordered on cynicism. I had been visiting this mountain range – flying over it, walking in it, sailing its bordering sea – for more than 15 years. During that time I’d heard of countless plans to enforce a log ban in the range, the nation’s largest protected area and easily the biggest remaining block of ancient forest in the Philippines. Yet the annihilation had always continued.

But around the time of that chopper flight in the middle of 2008, the tide began to turn. A task force formed by Padaca and backed by the military started to hike up the Abuan River and seize illegally cut wood left behind by bugadors, the river men who make a living riding the logs down the treacherous rapids to middlemen in the plains. The wood was left on the shores, often hidden haphazardly beneath leafy tree branches. The bugadors had fled, the chopper warning them that troops were coming.

My documentary team and I accompanied Padaca’s anti-illegal logging task force up the Abuan River on one of its first sorties, fighting the currents that pulled at our legs as soldiers scanned the slopes for the New People’s Army guerrillas who have long made the mountain range their haven. Environmental activists recruited by Governor Padaca gave the task force its gung-ho energy on the ground, while agents of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources provided manpower and legitimacy for the timber confiscation.

When I flew over this forest last year, I was with the provincial governor, Grace Padaca, her NGO allies, and military officers who took in the environmental destruction below with the determined gaze of war planners.

My own attitude bordered on cynicism. I had been visiting this mountain range – flying over it, walking in it, sailing its bordering sea – for more than 15 years. During that time I’d heard of countless plans to enforce a log ban in the range, the nation’s largest protected area and easily the biggest remaining block of ancient forest in the Philippines. Yet the annihilation had always continued.

We recorded men from the lowlands brave the unknown dangers of the jungle, find and seize contraband wood of the finest quality, and ride these down a perilous river to a military checkpoint for triumphant measurement and land transport to a government gym for safekeeping. Behind all that was a disabled woman governor who spoke in soft tones but carried a big stick.

I felt a rush from witnessing such a dramatically uplifting story in depressing times. The Northern Sierra Madre mountain range contains one of the most important forests on the planet and what has been called the nation’s “last great forest.” Unique upland ecosystems, rare plants, and majestic tree species exist here, in addition to the Philippine eagle and the Philippine crocodile, two of the most endangered large animals in the world. Saving all of that would be a milestone for the planet.

Yet I also needed to sober up from the adrenalin and withhold judgment. Too many other efforts to save our forests began with a splash and ended up barely a ripple, often sucked into a vortex of corruption and politics.

A succession of foreign aid agencies has pumped resources into forest protection programs here in the past two decades – to no avail. An entire economy based on contraband timber and protected by local politicians has evolved there to keep logging interests entrenched.

A forest clearing in the Sierra Madre yields illegally cut logs that feed Isabela’s thriving trade in wooden furniture.

But the campaign in Isabela continued long after my team and I left and aired our story. One sortie was shot at in June and task force member Jay Lim of the NGO Tanggol Kalikasan was wounded. He went back to the operation as soon as he healed.

In the first months of the anti-logging campaign, more than half a million board feet of wood was seized from the river banks.

It turned out that the river operations only set the stage for the real drama this year. After sweeping the rivers of contraband wood, the Padaca task force continued its aerial surveillance and pinpointed the stockpiles of narra and other prime wood cut illegally from the forests. Some of these were in compounds owned by families of local politicians, a few of them Padaca’s own political allies.

Beginning at the end of May and continuing for more than a week, the task force conducted lightning raids of these compounds, arrested their owners, and seized nearly a million board feet of wood, nearly doubling in eight days the volume of seizures from the previous ten months.

The job of law enforcement in a protected area such as the Northern Sierra Madre actually belongs to the DENR, which found it more convenient through the years not to disturb a thriving wood industry. But when Padaca mobilized the military, the church and NGOs, and her own considerable resources as governor, the DENR had little choice but to go along.

Nearly 900,000 board feet of illegally cut wood were confiscated in one week of raids in June 2009, a scale unheard of anywhere in the country.

Task force members had told me that they pleaded with DENR secretary Lito Atienza in a private meeting to take a more active role in the campaign. I tried to contact Atienza about his views on what was happening in Isabela and finally got a reply via Twitter:

“Gov Padaca’s campaign is gaining ground since they have been able to confiscate the biggest haul of illegally cut logs in the province’s history. I’m just not sure as to the exact volume.”

According to environmental lawyer Asis Perez, a Quezon province-based NGO activist who has been advising Padaca, the nearly 900,000 board feet in confiscations in little more than a week in 2009 is actually more than any previous amount for any other anti-logging operation anywhere else in the country.

“This has never happened before, not on this scale,” he said of the record-breaking volume, citing the 140,000 board feet seized in Quezon in 2006 as a previous high.

Flying recently over the same Isabela range where all that hard wood came from, Perez said he didn’t see any more cutting, perhaps the first time in decades that illegal logging there has stopped.

Perez said that after 16 years of work as a forest advocate, he was gratified that the most successful campaign of all was organized without foreign funding. “Tayo-tayo lang ito,” he said.

He said that the critical factor was the leadership of Padaca. “She gave it moral force, will and credibility,” Perez said.

Having known the activist through years of often frustrating anti-logging campaigning, I know that he doesn’t make that kind of assessment of politicians lightly.

Over 200 soldiers and policemen took part in the raids. “We used overwhelming force,” Perez said. “Hindi nakapalag ang mga ‘untouchables.’”

Among those so-called “untouchables” allegedly financing and protecting the wood industry were family members of local politicians, including Mayor Edgar Go of San Mariano municipality, the illegal logging center of the Northern Sierra Madre.  (Mayor Go reacts to the raid of the task force last June in the video below)

The DENR is recognizing the gains up north by using the campaign as a forest protection model in Mindanao. “The impact is far-reaching,” said Marlo Mendoza, the director of the DENR’s Forest Management Bureau. “The scale of this is different in terms of volume of (wood) seizures and yung nababangga niyang mga tao. Kailangan mo ng tapang dito.”

Mendoza explained that he’s urging the DENR and local politicians in Mindanao to emulate Isabela and collaborate with different sectors. But he acknowledges that for this approach to succeed, “it needs a champion like Governor Padaca.”

Interviewed about the campaign and her motivations several times since last year, Padaca is reluctant to couch anything in grandiose terms. “We are just trying to enforce the law,” she said. “This is an opportunity to prove that nobody can be above the law.” But she does have practical ecological considerations: she describes the dependence of the productive rice plains of her province on the protective watershed of the coastal mountain range.

As the campaign has progressed, she said that it’s become easier to get intelligence about where the contraband is stockpiled, with reliable information simply coming in via text from private citizens.

Gov. Padaca joins the task force in lightning raids, showing her determination to end illegal logging in Isabela.

Padaca was given a Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2008 for government service, citing her victory over a political dynasty and injecting a rare ethos into local politics. But that was even before what may prove to be an even larger achievement: Far from media’s glare in the remote canyons of her province’s mountain wilderness, the rivers now run free of the precious carcasses of big trees.

Often mentioned as a possible senatorial candidate, Padaca has admitted to wanting to move on to other pressing problems. “This is taking about 60% of my time. I need to focus on other things,” she sighs.

But she’s well aware that stopping illegal logging creates another problem: unemployment. Tens of thousands depend on logging in Isabela and its downstream wood industries, including fine narra furniture for export. What will they do now?

As Padaca wins on one front of this battle to save Isabela’s forests, another front has opened. -GMANews.TV

Source: Severino, Howie G. “Overwhelming force to save nation’s last great forest”. GMA News.TV, 21 July 2009. http://www.gmanews.tv/story/167866/Overwhelming-force-to-save-the-nations-last-great-forest. Accessed 26 July 2009.

Huwag tayong matakot ipaglaban kung ano ang tama. Kung ano ‘yung tama, ‘wag natin itong ikahiya, wag natin itong ikatakot. Ang dapat mahiya at matakot sa atin ay iyong mga salbahe.

In her fearless pursuit of what is right, she even treads paths that are supposedly beyond what is asked of her as a governor.

“So ang ginagawa ko ngayon, kahit hindi ko dapat primary mandate ito, trabaho ito ng DENR… Pero hindi ko naman masasabi bilang gobernador na habang dumadaan sa amin ang mga trak trak ng kahoy na pinutol na illegal eh, ‘Ay, hindi ko trabaho ‘yan, trabaho ‘yan ng DENR.’ Eh Isabela ko ‘yan eh. Galing sa lalawigan namin…ang mga pinutol. Kami ang mamamatay dahil sa landslide. Kami ang mamamatay dahil sa tag-gutom…

So hindi pwedeng hindi kami kumilos.”

But her work did not just end with crusading against illegal logging activities: She is working to provide alternative livelihood opportunities for the over 12,000 families of the illegal loggers who lost their jobs. “I am working very hard… for a better life for them.”

This is what real, progressive, and sustainable progress looks like.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The victory of Padaca in the elections for governor of Isabela over reelectionist Dy Jr., may well be history repeating itself.  But the most difficult challenge facing Padaca at this point is how to preserve the victory of the people of Isabela.

What made her win?  What were the factors that led to the fall of the Dy dynasty in Isabela? – Dabet Castañeda, Bulatlat

Every morning for 14 years, almost every household in the province of Isabela anticipated the radio program of Grace Padaca at DZNC-Bombo Radyo.  But her most important announcement came in February 2004: She was running for governor against Faustino Dy Jr., the incumbent and head of the family that ruled the province during the last four decades.  When the ballots were counted, Grace Padaca emerged the winner and proved to be the spark that crippled the four-decade long Dy-nasty in Isabela.

The provincial election in Isabela – a province north of Manila – is reminiscent of the 1986 snap elections – a people raging mad against a dictator and a strong-willed, well-meaning woman running against him.  The election results reflected the people’s disgust over the dictatorship. Even as the dictator Ferdinand Marcos manipulated the results and declared himself as the winner, the people ushered their candidate Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino to the presidential palace through a people’s uprising.

The victory of Padaca in the elections for governor of Isabela over reelectionist Dy Jr., may well be history repeating itself.  But the most difficult challenge facing Padaca at this point is how to preserve the victory of the people of Isabela.

What made her win?  What were the factors that led to the fall of the Dy dynasty in Isabela?

Shy but smart, 37-year-old Padaca is a native of Cauayan, the city capital of Isabela.  A consistent honor student, her dedication to her studies came from being a daughter of public school teachers.  Her father, Bernardo Padaca, was a district supervisor of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports until his death in 1984.  Mother Amelia Magno is a retired home economics teacher at the local public school.  Grace has two brothers and three sisters.

Coming from a lower-middle class family, Padaca claims she has no property except for her 21” television that she bought at a discounted price.   But her lack of resources was never a factor even if she ran against the richest clan in the province.

In an interview with Bulatlat.com somewhere in Quezon City, Padaca enumerated three important factors that were crucial to her victory: 1) the people of Isabela wanted to free themselves from the claws of a dynasty; 2) she was a well-respected media personality; and 3) the people of Isabela were furious over the cheating and manipulations done by the Dy family when she ran and won against Faustino Dy III for the congressional seat of the 3^rd District of Isabela during the 2001 elections.

The people have spoken

When news that Padaca has decided to run for governor came out, the people of Isabela had a lot to cheer about.  For a long time, no one dared to challenge the Dy family in elections. And with a reason: In the 2001 elections, the candidates of the Dy dynasty were practically unopposed for most positions in the province.

“Hindi nila kami binibigyan ng pagkakataong pumili, parang inuutusan lang nila kaming isulat ang pangalan nila to legitimize their positions.  Dumating na sa punto sa Isabela kahit aso ang patakbuhin ng mga Dy, mananalo kasi ganun sila ka-powerfu” (The people of Isabela were not given a chance to choose, instead we were just being made to perfunctorily write our names in the ballots to legitimize their positions.  It came to a point that even a dog can win in an election for as long as it is supported by the Dy family, proof of their power) , Padaca said.

There were attempts to go against the Dy family before but all efforts have failed. “Kaya ang nangyayari, sa susunod na eleksyon nakikisama na sila sa mga Dy kung gusto nilang pumuwesto sa gobyerno.  Yun lang kasi ang paraan para manalo sila” (Thus, candidates who challenged the Dy family and lost end up joining their political party in the hope of winning a position in government), she added.

Padaca recalled that Silvestre Bello III ran for governor against the Dy family but lost. He eventually joined the Dy camp.  “Nakukuha nila lahat ng oppositionists.  Ganun ang nangyayari” (They are able to neutralize all opposition to their rule.  That is what usually happens).

Padaca averred that the Dy family use patronage politics to perpetuate their rule.  She claimed that when Faustino Dy Jr. first entered politics, he sponsored a tour of village leaders to Subic; sent public school teachers to Hong Kong; and financed a trip to Europe for mayors.

But the people of Isabela have had enough of the Dy dynasty and were beguiled by a gutsy woman whom they knew only as Bombo Grace. Bombo literally means bombastic, it is also the moniker of the radio station where Padaca was a broadcaster for 14 years.

Padaca noted that for the first time in four decades, a United Opposition emerged.  Representatives from different political parties including Edwin Uy of the ruling party Lakas, Pempe Miranda of the Partido ng Masang Pilipino, and progressive party-list groups such as Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Gabriela Women’s Party became part of the United Opposition.

People from the marginalized sectors, specifically from the peasantry and the youth, volunteered for the campaign and became poll watchers for the united opposition.  Almost all sectors in the province of Isabela bonded together to go against their common enemy.

Padaca challenged the dynasty’s center of power – Faustino Dy Jr.  “He was the richest, most intelligent, and cunning member of the clan.  All other members of the Dy clan just follow his orders.  He practically ruled the dynasty,” Padaca said.

But for Padaca, the toughest challenge was not running against Faustino Dy Jr. even if he is rich, intelligent, and cunning.  It was going against a clan which had determined the political and economic landscape of Isabela during the last 40 years.  Padaca stressed that her victory could not have been possible if not for the support of the people who have suffered much during the rule of the Dy dynasty.

Media background

Being a radio personality was Padaca’s childhood dream especially because of her physical handicap.  “Gusto ko yun kasi naririnig ka ng tao pero hindi ka nakikita” (I liked radio broadcasting because you can be heard without being seen), she said

She started her career in broadcasting when she was a fourth year high school student at Our Lady of Pilar Institution in her town.  Because of her disability, she was exempted from Citizen’s Army Training.  Instead, she was asked to host a youth-oriented program at the local radio station of Bombo Radyo.

In 1986, the same station asked Padaca to help in its coverage of the snap elections between the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino.  She was also asked to help during the coverage of the People Power Revolt that followed.

Ironically, it was the Dy family who, unintentionally, paved the way for Padaca to get a regular job at Bombo Radyo.  During the People Power Revolt, Sonia Salvador, one of the station’s broadcasters, sang “Bayan Ko” during one of her programs.  This got the ire of the Dy family as they were supporting Marcos at that time.  The Dy family pressured Bombo Radyo to suspend Salvador who was also the station’s accountant.

Padaca, being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), was offered to take on Salvador’s job as accountant.  A few months later, she was offered to host her own radio program “Sa Totoo Lang” (Only the Truth).

Her first hosting job led to her career as radio commentator for 14 years, from 1986 to 2000.  She said her being a broadcaster was a big factor in her victory in the elections for governor.  “The people got to know me.  Not just my name but the issues associated with me,” she said.

Padaca said her listeners were mostly peasants, teachers and the youth.  Most of her airtime was spent discussing ecology, governance and peasant issues.

Padaca was also revered as an honest and responsible broadcaster.  She said the owners of the station were very strict when it comes to ethics.  “As reporters, we feel guilty when our interviewee treats us to a bottle of soft drinks,” she claimed.

She retired from media work in 2000 when she felt she wanted to shift gears.  “I felt I have experienced all the best that could happen to a media practitioner,” she said.

She was also fed up with the same issues and the same commentaries.  Her exasperation was aggravated by the fact that Joseph Estrada was then president of the country.  “I could not spend everyday of my life as a broadcaster chronicling the life of this man,” referring to the former president’s womanizing, gambling and other activities which the people viewed as “unpresidentiable.”

The final straw was when she heard that another Dy, Cesar, who Padaca described as “happy-go-lucky, a former drug-dependent, a womanizer and who was being linked to jueteng (illegal numbers game) operations,” was planning to run for mayor of Cauayan during the 2001 elections.

She resigned from Bombo Radyo and worked for one year at the Commission on Audit.  She was assigned at the Cauayan branch of the Government Service and Insurance System, GSIS).

Cheating in the 2001 elections

Another factor which facilitated her victory during the recent elections was her experience as a congressional candidate of the 3^rd District of the province in the 2001 elections.

“The people got mad when I was cheated by my rival, Bodjie Dy,” she said.  She was surprised that she gained popular support in other districts as well because they were mad about the cheating that happened in 2001.

The election returns for the congressional seat in the 3^rd District showed that Padaca won in five out of eight towns.   But because Bodije Dy padded some votes for him, he was declared the winner.

“At the onset, I was resigned to the fact that I would lose because I knew they were capable of doing those things.  But the biggest pressure on me was when the people told me to fight because they were fighting for me too,” she said.

Padaca filed a case against Dy at the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET).  The recounting procedure needed a fund amounting to P850,000 so she wrote letters to anyone that she could think of for financial assistance.  To her surprise, funds poured in, mostly coming from young professionals.  One of those who responded was the late Enrique Zobel.  Padaca and her group were able to raise as much as P650,000 to sustain the case against Bodjie Dy.

Although the investigation revealed that Bodjie Dy padded his votes, the Tribunal still declared him as the winner by 48 votes in its decision released last December 18, 2003.

Padaca said that she was clearly the winner in that race.  But the Tribunal did not count the votes “Grace” in her favor.  The poll body asserted that her alias was “Bombo Grace.”  There were 150 votes that had the name “Grace,” which if counted would have Padaca winning by 102 votes.  Padaca was not surprised by the decision because most of the members of the Tribunal were affiliated to the Dy family.

While the case went on, Padaca was left unemployed until she found a job in one of the provincial offices of Enrique Zobel.  She worked as an accountant for one of Zobel’s haciendas in Batangas, a province south of Manila. She worked there for 10 months from May 2003 to February 2004.

Good governance in Isabela

“I would always tell the people that I cannot change Isabela alone.  I need their help,” she said.

Padaca said that once she assumes office at the Provincial Capitol, she will hire people who are more deserving, more competent and more professional than the ones who are there now.  She would be putting in experts who are experienced in the different fields of concern like health, education and agriculture.

Her proclamation as governor of Isabela was suspended by the Commission on Elections in a decision of its First Division last May 22 after Faustino Dy, Jr. filed a case against her for allegedly being supported by an armed group, the New People’s Army (NPA).  “I don’t have any way of knowing whether the NPA really supported my candidacy but if they did, I can only say thank you,” she said.

But for Gov. Grace Padaca, her much-delayed proclamation would only be the start.  “After my proclamation, it’s one down and 99 more to go,” she said referring to the bigger tasks ahead of her as the new governor of Isabela.

Source: Castañeda, Dabet. “The Spark that Crippled a Dynasty”. Bulatlat, 05 June 2004.http://www.bulatlat.com/news/4-17/4-17-dynasty.html. Accessed 26 July 2009.