SEN. Aquilino Pimentel 3rd had to eat his own words after describing the plan to tap Communications Assistant Secretary Esther Margaux “Mocha” Uson as a spokeswoman for the push for federalism as a “beautiful decision.”

Some sense was knocked into his head amid the public outrage over the viral video in which Uson was shown egging a pro-Duterte vlogger (video blogger), Drew Olivar, to do a raunchy dance routine now known as “I-pepe-dede-ralismo.”

Pimentel, nonetheless, quickly redeemed himself when he said Uson should be excised from the federalism drive and be placed on leave so she could hit the books and learn what she could about federalism.





We respectfully disagree. Uson, the Palace gadfly, has strayed out of her bounds for too long; it is curious why the Duterte administration has allowed her to keep her job despite this and previous gaffes.

Uson has been either in denial of the gravity of her offense, or rationalizing it. In the process she has continued to expose her lack of competence for the office of assistant secretary.

First, she claimed the video was spliced and taken out of context; it was for a “game show” in which participants came up with funny jingles and dance routines. At any rate, it was not her who did the lewd dance but Olivar; it wasn’t taxpayer-funded as Olivar wasn’t paid for his services; and anyway, it got people finally talking about federalism.

We could just imagine what kind of creativity Uson and Olivar would have put into a federalism video given a proper budget. Sen. Grace Poe is right — Congress needs to scrutinize the P100-million budget increase for 2019 requested by the Presidential Communications Operations Office, where Uson works as assistant secretary.

Her absurd rationalization failing to fly, Uson then shifted the topic and feigned outrage at why people were outraged over her video and not the supposed fraud that happened in the 2016 elections. This takes the cake as far as proof of Uson’s incompetence is concerned — she couldn’t even construct a proper red-herring argument.

Uson has not only debased the federalism discourse, she might also have single-handedly hardened the position of those opposed to Charter change. She has debased women in the process by making use of their body parts to hawk the idea of federalism to the masses.

She has insulted the well-meaning civil servants working hard to mainstream the federalism discourse, like Ding Generoso, the spokesman for the constitutional review committee formed by the Palace. Finally, Uson has insulted the public’s intelligence by thinking her demo video was at the level where the general public would understand the concept of federalism.

Uson is no longer an asset to the Duterte administration, despite her much touted millions of followers. She should either be asked to resign out of delicadeza for giving the President an unnecessary headache, or be fired outright, especially if she remains obstinate in her ignorance and arrogance.