Si Gob at ang mga bugador

Set to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service on August 31, Isabela Governor Grace Padaca is one of the country's rising stars in politics, and she is using her burgeoning political capital to take on some of local governments' largest challenges. The latest is illegal logging, which is rapidly turning her province's forested northern Sierra Madre mountain range into a wasteland. I spent a few days in Isabela this month observing how she and her administration are doing it. The result is a documentary airing on I-Witness on August 25, Monday midnight (Philippine time, a day or two later on Pinoy Tv overseas): Si Gob at ang mga Bugador. We went up in a chopper and saw rivers lined with logs. I saw Padaca (pronounced Pa-da-CAH) face the ire of barangay captains who were protesting her anti-logging checkpoints, and witnessed tears when she heard the sob stories of wives of bugadors, cargo men transporting contraband wood who were suddenly thrown out of work. But she doesn't back down.