Obituary: Mario Taguiwalo, leading thinker in the Cory Aquino administration

When Mario T. Taguiwalo was a 34-year-old Undersecretary of Health in the early "revolutionary" years of the Cory Aquino administration, he would say that behind his back, the Department of Health's civil servants would nervously call him "Taga-walis." Then he would erupt in that signature guffaw of his, seemingly proud of the moniker. 

He was driven by the need to sweep out corruption from the bureaucracy in that heady, idealistic post-EDSA time. We worked for the same boss, then-Health Secretary Alfredo Bengzon. As a callow recent college graduate at the time, I was constantly amazed at what Mario could do. He could ghost-write eloquent speeches quickly in both English and Filipino, he argued persuasively, he thought strategically, he cracked jokes at just the right time, breaking any tension with that exuberant laugh. His stamina for work was legendary. He gained a reputation as a whiz in the Aquino administration.  He was the right-hand man of the equally brilliant Bengzon in nearly every major health initiative of that era, including the ground-breaking Generics Act that changed the way doctors prescribed medicines, and the Milk Code, which promoted breastfeeding and introduced reforms in the distribution of infant formula.  But Taguiwalo's analytical skills were employed by the government on non-health concerns as well, as he was involved in peace strategies and civil service reforms.  His idealism was already evident as a young man, having been a political detainee during Martial Law. His sister Judy spent even more years as a detainee in Camp Crame. He belonged to the generation of professionals fired up by the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983, leading to his service in the government of Ninoy's wife Cory.  After leaving government in 1992, he continued his mission of promoting good governance in various roles: as an economist, think tank head, reform advocate, and adviser in the Noynoy Aquino campaign in 2009-2010. In his latter years, he was often referred to as a guru. Beyond his reputation as one of the most versatile intellectuals of his time, Taguiwalo also had an artistic side, appearing in character roles in movies directed by his good friend Peque Gallaga, a fellow Negros native, with whom he conceptualized the classic period film "Oro, Plata, Mata." Taguiwalo was a witty writer, contributing in the mid-1970s a famously prophetic essay about EDSA in the literary magazine, Ermita.  The country became so much poorer when Taguiwalo died of colon cancer last Sunday, April 22. In an emailed announcement, his wife Beaulah said: “Just as he wished, Mario died simply, gently, peacefully, quietly, without physical pain. And, just as he wished, he was cremated right away, without any funeral or wake, without any obituary, and his ashes taken straight home by our middle son Homer and me and set beside the ashes of our youngest son Mike and our eldest son Mark in the privacy of our home." I asked Mario to write an essay for this website in August 2010, to mark the first death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino in the administration of his son, President Noynoy Aquino. An excerpt: "I think of Ninoy’s death as a kind of atomic explosion in our collective consciousness. At its detonation, it released a first wave of anger and outrage powerful enough to sweep aside Marcos from power and bring down the political and institutional infrastructure of his long dictatorship. This first wave crested in the 1986 EDSA revolution and settled down with the ratification of the 1987 Constitution. 

"A second, less dramatic but very real wave akin to radiation then followed the initial explosion. This was marked by our people’s determination, based on faith in the pure virtue of Ninoy’s sacrifice, that our democracy will prevail and survive coups, corruption and illegitimacy." In a tribute to the late former Budget Secretary Emy Boncodin in 2010, Taguiwalo wrote, "In contrast to the endless variety of dying, there are really only two ways we can live our lives. Either we serve our fellow men and women, or we serve ourselves." -- RSJ, GMA News