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ONE
hopes that Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye was quite
accurate in saying “that’s all folks” as far as the
Cabinet shuffle is concerned.
He told
reporters at the weekend that, besides his impending
transfer to the Monetary Board, the assumption to office
of his successor Jesus Dureza as the new Office of the
Press Secretary (OPS) chief and the appointment of
former justice secretary Silvestre Bello III as the new
Cabinet Secretary, there will be no more changes
announced.
Not that
we think everyone in the Arroyo Cabinet is top-caliber
material and shouldn’t be replaced. But to be honest,
this administration has such a bad record in picking
people—and losing good ones—that every new revamp is
fraught with the risk that yet another misfit will be
foisted on the public.
Still,
we know there are still other Senate also-rans to whom
the administration may feel indebted, and thus might
consider it an obligation to give jobs to. A silly
notion, actually, but it’s being done. At any rate,
because there are still several also-rans waiting in the
wings, there’s a real risk we will wake up one day to
find yet another square peg squeezing him/herself into a
round government hole.
The most
troubling among speculations of second-round
appointments is one that’s below Cabinet level but still
troubling. For weeks now, there has been a scuttlebutt
that administration Senate also-ran Prospero “Butch”
Pichay will go to the Bureau of Customs (BOC), replacing
commissioner Napoleon Morales. Now, the BOC under Mr.
Morales may have had its shortcomings, but it would make
matters worse if such a crucial revenue agency were
placed under a controversial person.
This
didn’t come from us, but some recent commentaries had
raised concern over past allegations against Pichay. To
be fair to Mr. Pichay, these have never been proven in
court, but the allegations—among others, that he was
cozy with suspected smugglers—are serious enough to cast
a shadow on his fitness for that post. Even if one were
to demand the most exacting evidence of this allegation,
it doesn’t help that, until now, there’s no clear
explanation for the sources of his mind-boggling wealth.
The BOC,
after all, is such a sensitive post that no one with
such a baggage should be put in charge of it; especially
not when the government cannot afford to falter in its
revenue collection this year.
Besides
the unproven allegations of a checkered past, yet
another matter that makes a Pichay tenure at Customs a
risky proposition is that among the 2007 Senate election
candidates, he was among the top spenders, shuttling to
and from sorties in a chopper and hogging the limelight
with expensive TV ads. One radio story put his campaign
expenditures at a minimum P100 million.
Now,
someone who might always be suspected of striving to
recoup such huge expenses is not exactly the best person
to put at Customs. Even assuming he’d have no such
intent, his appointment would, nonetheless, send a wrong
signal to stakeholders and jeopardize public confidence
in the tax-collection system, thus making it easier for
people to justify a decision not to follow the right
processes or pay the right taxes—assuming these are paid
at all.
As an
aside, another square peg is former Armed Forces chief
Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., who will be the next
presidential adviser on the peace process, replacing
Jess Dureza who will go to the OPS. Party-list Rep.
Teodoro Casińo, interviewed Monday at dwIZ’s
Karambola, put it so simply: Among other reasons,
Esperon doesn’t have the mindset crucial for such a
sensitive job.
Surely,
it’s too much to expect a general, who repeatedly vowed
to crush at all costs a nearly 40-year insurgency in
just three years, to suddenly turn around and wear the
hat of “peace adviser.” Engagement in the peace process
requires a whole new perspective, one that’s worlds
apart from that of a general who once made it his
mission to crush the enemy by all means. Knowing what
happened during Esperon’s term in the Armed Forces—the
unprecedented rise of extrajudicial killings and
enforced disappearances—one has a pretty good idea of
what “by all means” and “at whatever costs” really
implies.
In a
word, it means following the framework set out in the
well-distributed paper of a hypocritical Jesuit who, in
fact, provided virtual justification for a preemptive
strike, yes, even among civilians deemed infected with
communist thought, even though there was no formal
repeal of the law that repealed the antisubversion law.
In
fairness, General Esperon may have the skills suited for
some other government functions; but overseeing the
peace process is not one of them.
Finally,
a little bit of history: The newly named Cabinet
secretary, Mr. Bello, was once linked to the shameless
episode called “11 Little Indians” for which several
immigration officials were convicted for following,
sources said, the behest of Mr. Bello. Sure, his
defenders might say, the fact he was never convicted
indicates he was innocent of allegations that his
subordinates cleared, supposedly for a fee, the escape
from the country of Indians accused of drug trafficking
during the Ramos administration. But the question is:
wala na bang iba (Is there no one else to appoint
for this post)?
That
controversial appointees are being named even as so many
in the Cabinet remain unconfirmed by Congress until now
indicates how shallow the administration’s bench is.
Perhaps too many good public servants have been “burned”
by the past seven years or don’t want to get the same
treatment suffered by those who were burned; or perhaps
there are just too few people still willing to serve the
government.
Whatever
it is, the driving force for these changes, announced
and yet-unannounced, still seems to be that desire to
pay political debts. In happier times, mistakes in
appointments might be something people live with. But
these are hard times, and the last thing people will
stand for is having to pay the salary—and the potential
price for the misdeeds—of yet another misfit. |
