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Ex-senator Ernesto Herrera dies at 73


(Updated 8:50 p.m.) Former senator and trade union leader Ernesto “Boy” Herrera passed away Thursday at the Makati Medical Center. He was 73.

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) director for education Raffy Mapalo confirmed Herrera’s death.

A source, meanwhile, said the former senator died of cardiac arrest.

Herrera, who served in the Senate from 1987 to 1998, also became the district representative of Bohol from the 8th to 10th Congress.

He was the primary author of Republic Act 6715, which amended the Labor Code in 1989.

Herrera, who served in the Senate from 1987 to 1998, also became the district representative of Bohol from the 8th to 10th Congress.

He was the primary author of Republic Act 6715, which amended the Labor Code in 1989.

In 2011, Herrera was involved in a power struggle within TUCP that ended in his expulsion from the group. But earlier this year, the Supreme Court affirmed his reinstatement as the organization’s legitimate president.

Herrera gained prominence  as a member of the Agava fact-finding board that investigated the August 1983 assassination of Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., father of incumbent President Benigno Aquino III.

He was the only Filipino member of the executive board of the International Federation of Free Trade and Union in Brussels, Belgium, from 1988 to 1992. He also served as a consultant on worker’s education of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland, and headed the the Worker’s Delegation to the 75th Session of the ILO.

Herrera holds the distinction of being the first Asian and the second individual to receive the George Meany International Human Rights Awards in 1985, after former Polish President Lech Walesa.

Aside from his dedication to labor causes, Herrera was known as a staunch anti-illegal drug advocate. He was the founding chairman of Citizens’ Drug Watch Foundation, Inc, and once headed the non-government group Crimewatch.

He graduated with a law degree from the University of Visayas in 1966, and earned his master's degree in Public Administration, major in Public Finance, at the Lyceum of the Philippines in 1995. He obtained his doctorate degree in fiscal studies in the same university in 1998.

In a statement, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte remembered Herrera as a lawmaker whose name “has been synonymous with his staunch advocacies relating to trade unions in the country.”

“We join our fellow Filipinos and his family in mourning his loss, especially those in our trade unions who have looked up to Boy’s leadership of many years,” he said. —KBK, GMA News
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