I truly respect and admire the bold and justified resignation of Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia.

He is among the last, if not the only remaining, independent-minded Duterte Cabinet member.

Pernia has good reasons to resign as he was being preempted by a “few colleagues” in the Cabinet in developing a post-pandemic economic policy to rescue the depressed economy and distraught Filipinos.

At the time of his resignation, Pernia as National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary was Chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force’s (IATF) Technical Working Group (TWG) which was drafting an Anticipatory and Forward Planning blueprint for a post-COVID-19 scenario.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN