Posted on September 14, 2015 11:40:00 PM
Aug. 29 was a very sad day. Francis M.
Varela, undersecretary of the Department of Education (DepEd), perished
in a motorcycle accident. Mourning the loss of such a good man, in every
sense of the word, tributes flowed. At least three saw print in
national newspapers.
Allow me to share excerpts of the testimonial by Dr. Felipe
M. Medalla during the DepEd necrological service. Dr. Medalla, former
dean of the UP School of Economics, former long serving chairman of the
Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), had worked with Francis in FEF.
FEF is an advocacy group for sound economic governance founded by a
number of us in the mid-’90s. Francis raised the first P1 million to
help it get started, and later served as its President. Many of us in
FEF, like Francis, had served in government, and sought to continue to
make a difference -- “raging incrementalists” we call ourselves half in
jest.
From left: Mr. Bernardo, Francis
Varela, Alan Ortiz, President of SMC Global Power Holding, and Atty.
Ferdinand Tolentino, former Deputy Executive Director of the PPP Center,
in Caliraya.
I’m here to honor Francis as a friend and in behalf of the Foundation for Economic Freedom or FEF. Francis was a former president of FEF and I was a former Chair. Until Francis joined DepEd (and in my case, the monetary board), we were both very active and vocal members of FEF because of what our advocacy-oriented NGO believes in -- that good governance, transparency, accountability, good economic and financial analysis, market forces and competition together can contribute significantly to improving Filipino well-being -- not just for those who are already well-off but especially for those who are so disadvantaged that they are not in a position to articulate why the policies that are being peddled by some interest groups supposedly for their benefit often do exactly the opposite.
Francis of course fought against corruption, as pointed out by some of the previous speakers. His record in DepEd would attest to that.
But he was very much aware that reducing corruption is not enough, since focusing solely on reducing corruption in an economic environment where people are driven by distorted prices and wrong incentives will, at best, improve Filipino welfare only marginally. Francis and the FEF believe that self interest, guided by a moral compass and disciplined by competition and the rule of law, could be quite consistent with social welfare.
What impressed me most about Francis is that he was so passionate about advocacies for better public policies, in spite of his own awareness of the capacity of those who benefit from the bad policies to thwart reform efforts. In short, that his own analysis often told him that many of the reform advocacies and efforts may not bear fruit did not stop him from trying.
And Francis believed that short cuts such as non-democratic ways of changing society are likely to back fire. There’s no Messiah that would solve our economic and social problems. And the converse must be true: long journeys require many small steps.
In short, Francis believed that we should all do our share.
And if a lot of people fight for the causes they believe in, they can bring about small improvement, which taken together could count for quite a lot.
It therefore did not surprise me that Francis joined the DepEd as an Undersecretary.
After all, won’t it be a bit hypocritical to call for reforms from the outside and refuse to be part of reforms from the inside when the opportunity to do so comes along. Of course, the financial and personal sacrifices for Francis to do so must have been significant, but Francis being Francis, these would not have stopped him from serving.
In sum, passion and patience both describe Francis very well.
How can someone so passionate be so patient? (It of course helped a lot that he was so handsome and charming.) Well, the 2 P’s must be glued together by a third P -- Patriotism. Francis loved our country. But even these three P’s might not be enough. They must be supported by a strong intellect and good analysis. And it was therefore very fitting that Francis championed three P’s of a different kind in DepEd -- public-private partnership.
By the way, some of you may be surprised that Francis is getting tributes from people who are at least twenty years older than him. But Francis is truly much wiser than his years on earth. And because of those relatively few years, we are all better off.
Allow me to end this column by touching on a side of Francis that tragically consumed him -- motorcycle riding.
It is not easy to explain this diversion, passion really, which seem more like an insanity to people who do not have the DNA for it. And reasons for riding can be varied and personal.
It’s been said that riding a motorcycle is freedom and vulnerability, adventure and wanderlust, meditation and therapy, merger of man and machine; technology and art, camaraderie with the boys, a quantum of solace, epic pointlessness, transcendence, life. And for many, we knew it from the moment we first tried a motorcycle as teenage boys -- perhaps even before.
This transcendental meditative state is captured well by Milan Kundera in the Unbearable Lightness of Being. “The man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight. He is caught in a fragment of time, cut off from both the past and the future. He is wrenched from the continuity of time... in other words, he is in a state of ecstasy.”
I went the first night of Francis’ wake to console with his family.
Wenna, his wife, and their children were inconsolable, in shock at the tragic event of the morning. I tried again on the third day, unsuccessfully -- Wenna was fatigued.
I felt the need to apologize: a decade ago, I lent Francis my spare big bike that got him restarted on riding, against the better judgment of the women in our families.
An opportunity finally presented itself during the DepEd memorial.
I very contritely condoled and offered my hand in sympathy. She looked at me straight and her first words were: “I remember, you lent him his first bike”. Perhaps seeing my eyes well with tears, she smiled and said -- “He loved riding with a passion... A week he is unable to ride, ang sungit sungit (he’s grumpy) the whole week.”
I can only console myself by believing that Francis died doing something he loved. The family he left behind can only find consolation in the knowledge that the good die young and God has called him to come home.
Francis was the essence of virtue. We who knew him well mourn the dimming of a flame that brightened our gray world.
Romeo L. Bernardo is Vice Chairman of FEF and is a Board Member of the Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis.
http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Opinion&title=tribute-to-francis-varela-&145raging-incrementalist&8217-big-bike-enthusiast&id=115298
