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IT would
have sent a strong and useful signal to one and all that
her administration meant business in cracking down on
those who take advantage of the present food crunch,
especially in staples like rice, flour and sugar, to
make obscene profits at the public’s expense, but the
President’s dramatics at the Bureau of Customs (BOJ) on
Monday was uncalled for.
In the
first place, it would have been enough for her to give
the tough orders to Customs chief Napoleon Morales and
his staff to do what had to be done to prosecute those
found red-handed smuggling—either by sneaking in items
or misdeclaring or undervaluing them—such basic items
now that people everywhere are in panic to get their
hands on at reasonable prices. And, if Mr. Morales and
all concerned officials fail to do their duty, then
that’s the time to throw the book at them.
But by
micromanaging and looking over the shoulder of the BOC
officials, she only succeeded in looking like a
trying-hard boss, eager to look good before the press
while stepping on the faces of bureaucrats. Not that the
Customs personnel are blameless—but it’s one thing for a
President to give an order and quite another for her to
breathe down a bureaucrat’s neck while he’s doing the
paperwork.
We bring
this up because many years ago, when she was just a year
or two in Malacañang, Mrs. Arroyo was suddenly seized
with this obsession to play supercop and started acting
like a mayor or chief of police, parading suspects
before the press.
In one
such perp walk, someone made the unfortunate mistake of
tagging a whistle blower in a financial scam, one
feisty, vigilant woman called Acza Ramirez, as a
“suspect,” and President Arroyo promptly called her as
such before national television. Poor Ramirez could have
died from shame and shock that moment: she had been
“invited” to the Palace with the belief that the
President wanted to quietly congratulate her for being a
whistle blower. When she was told to stand behind the
President as the cameras rolled, the ground fell beneath
her feet when she was instead called a suspect.
At about
the same time, the President was also caught in two
similar incidents, albeit more minor, but she learned
her tough lesson: joining perp walks was not the job of
the commander in chief, who should be dwelling on work
that befits her stature. She later apologized to Ramirez
and, from what is remembered, that was accepted.
Maybe
the President’s outburst at Customs wasn’t meant to be a
reprise of the tragic Acza perp walk; but if she keeps
doing that in these crisis-ridden times, when tempers
are high and many desperate people expect her to create
miracles, the danger of making similar mistakes is
always there.
She
should avoid the temptation to play supercop or
superwoman; anyway, her drumbeaters keep saying, in
response to surveys consistently showing her ratings
declining, that she’s more concerned with obtaining
results than being popular.
Fine:
then focus on the bigger picture. Make sure she gets the
best and untainted advice on policy in a time when
there’s every danger of remedial measures causing new,
bigger problems while solving the current crisis; and
make sure anyone, regardless of affiliation or closeness
to her, feels the crack of the whip when tough actions
are taken. By playing cop, especially at Customs, she’ll
only give her critics fodder to rake up past issues
about smugglers having ties with “people up there.”
Worse, by terrorizing bureaucrats to follow her beat,
she could be unwittingly forcing them to cut corners and
thus risk losing cases later in court, on grounds of due
process. |
