Goodbye Boy Herrera! Hello Toots Ople!

THE country lost a great labor leader with the death of former Sen. Ernesto “Boy” Herrera. Almost his entire life had been dedicated to the quest for a better life for the country’s workers. He was the “Robin” to the late Ka Blas Ople aka Batman, the best labor secretary the country ever had. These two champions of labor were an inseparable tandem in and out of the Senate. Now, they are together again in the afterlife. My condolences to the Herrera family.

In his last column in The Manila Times, Herrera said that the Aquino government may be boasting of economic development but the workers are not happy. If it’s any consolation, there lies in the horizon another champion of workers, specifically of overseas workers -- Susan “Toots” Ople who had imbibed Ka Blas’ soulful concern for laborers and inherited his intelligence.