There was a political satire comedy TV series called Veep that aired on HBO from 2012 to 2019 and one of the most unforgettable characters there was Gary Walsh. Gary is a personal aide to the equally fictitious Vice-President Selina Meyer, accompanying her at all times providing everything she immediately might need. America’s vice-president knows she’d crumble without him by her side.
Every political or public figure has a trusted man or woman around him or her. They are the close-in assistants taking care of various tasks for his/her principal. They undertake research, administrative support, and publicity duties rolled into one. They are somebody acting as political affairs chiefs providing constituency and personal assistance. During our days, we call them general factotum.
Vice-Gubernatorial aspirant and the incumbent Senior Provincial Board Member Diana C. Apigo-Tayag’s Gary Walsh is Oliver Roldan whom she met way back before she joined the contest for a seat in provincial board in 2019. This May 2022, Apigo-Tayag will be going against Abra De Ilog Mayor Eric Constantino.
Born on November 8, 1973, Bokal Diana came from a prominent family in Calintaan and San Jose. Diana’s parents are Eduardo Apigo, a former board member, and Antonieta “Neneth” Credo, a relative of the late Bishop Vicente Credo Manuel, SVD, DD, the first prelate of Occidental Mindoro. She is happily married to Mateo “Jeng” Tayag III, a businessman, the man in white shirt in the picture above.
If Gadiano-Sato is an inter-gender showdown for governor, so is the Tayag-Constantino face-off. This is a contest between a lawyer, a fiscal prosecutor for that matter, and a Certified Public Accountant but both businesspersons. Apigo-Tayag, a CPA by profession, is the owner of a known chain of gasoline stations and is involved in rice trading and milling, and trucking services in San Jose.
Instead of directly interviewing said soon-to-be candidate for the province’s second-highest post, I opted to introduce Board Member Apigo-Tayag through her personal assistant Oliver Roldan.
How did you know your Ma’am Diana? When did you start working for her?
I met Bokal Diana way back in 2010 in a dancing studio for her favorite pastime is ballroom dancing. I was then a dance instructor as my part-time work. Nine years later, when I was informed that she is going to run for Board Member, I applied to be her assistant and she gladly accepted me. And so to speak, the rest is history.
What do you like most about her as a person? Her positive traits and characteristics?
She is very generous and a loving mother to her children, Sybil Madeline, Matthew Judd, and Benedict Jomari. She is very compassionate especially towards the less fortunate. Soft-spoken, humble, hard-working, and religious. She is a Marian devotee and has been active in various church projects and activities.
In your opinion, what qualities she possesses to be worthy of the vice-gubernatorial position?
She finished her Bachelor’s Degree in Accountancy at the Divine Word College of San Jose (DWCSJ). Despite having a child and being financially unstable, she finally graduated and passed the CPA board examination. In the first 3 months of her term as Senior Board Member, she served as acting vice-governor and was able to pass the 2020 Annual Budget. She recently received the excellence award for garnering the highest number of authored ordinances for 2019-2021. She is a good person, so effective and efficient and her work ethic is excellent. She has a heart of gold in public service.
Her most prominent legislation is the province’s Freedom of Information Ordinance and it manifests her adherence to such fundamental right. Leadership-wise, she is the Former Champion President of the Rotary Club of San Jose and Former Regent of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate-Mina de Oro Circle. She has her father behind her who is an experienced politician giving her pointers and pieces of advice. She also enrolled at the National College of Public Administration & Governance (NCPAG) and she gained the necessary professional expertise to deal with public policy issues, executive and administrative development, and the challenges of governance.
More importantly, Madam Diana, more than ever is now very ready to face the challenges of being the presiding officer of the provincial august body and be the province’s chief legislator.
What are her dreams and aspirations for Occidental Mindoro and
its people as she usually tells you and the rest of her staff?
Her dreams and aspirations for her province are a corrupt-free government as evidenced by her first-ever ordinance for freedom of information. She believes in bringing public service to the people. She wants a government that is mula sa tao, para sa tao.
Your most unforgettable anecdote about her?
During the campaigns in 2019 in Iling Island together with then gubernatorial candidate Ed Gadiano, we happened to meet a middle-aged indigent man making a casket for her pregnant wife who died because he was not able to bring her to the hospital in mainland San Jose that night due to the absence of a motorized banca that could transport his dying wife to a hospital across hostile waters.
I witnessed how Bokal
Diana broke down to tears empathizing with the man and his little children.
This sad incident and scenario moved her and Gov. Ed to include in their
campaign the provision of sea ambulances for Iling and the rest of the island
barangays and towns of the province.
(Click HERE for the separate story on the sea ambulances.)
But she is not all serious. She always burst into laughter over little things. Be it an awkward situation like how we nearly fell in a tricycle or my loud snoring every time I sleep in the van after a campaign sortie.
This is how my online interview ended as I realized that without Oliver, in one way or another, the veegee aspirant’s everyday chore would be difficult for they are like the fictitious Vice-President Selina Mayer and Gary Walsh, her personal assistant.
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(Photo:
Oliver Roldan)
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