P-Noy must seek experienced help

We are told that P-Noy, like his mother, has a tendency to be stubborn specially about unsolicited advice. But unlike his mother, P-Noy declared during his inauguration that we, the people, are his boss. And he did say he would listen to us and so we have the right to hold him to that promise.

It is obvious that many of his choices for key positions in his government are wet behind the ears. We knew that on Day One of his administration with that trouble on Memorandum Order Number One. His Katzenjammer kids running the executive office were not wise enough to ask for directions before issuing the very first order of the new administration.

But we were still euphoric at that time and we were ready to forgive early gaffes. At least, no one died as a consequence of official incompetence. But now we are sure they need adult supervision.

My first question when the hostage crisis was going on was: why aren’t they putting the crisis committee under the office of the executive secretary into action? I knew there was such a committee under Ate Glue and Ambassador Bobi Tiglao confirmed it in his column several days later.

According to Bobi, it was Executive Secretary Alberto G. Romulo who conceptualized and quite methodically run — until his assignment to the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2004 — this crisis committee. And surprise, surprise… the crisis committee should be an initiative of the executive secretary.

Not only did the executive secretary fail to activate the crisis committee, P-Noy was reportedly even the one who briefed him on the details of the crisis instead of the other way around. I agree with Bobi’s assertion that “one of the most important tasks of President Aquino’s executive secretary is to set up a structure that will deal with crisis situations.”

If the kabarkadas didn’t know how to go about putting up this crisis committee, they should have asked around. As far as I know, Romulo is a member of P-Noy’s cabinet. P-Noy could have asked his more experienced Tito Bert to help his clueless executive secretary go through the paces of how to run the most important office in the Palace.

And yes, Bobi is also correct to point out that P-Noy’s executive secretary didn’t have to, so to speak, reinvent the wheel. The Cabinet Oversight Committee on Internal Security could have been organized under Executive Order No. 121 of June 2001. That EO had not yet been revoked and so we can presume it is still technically valid. If that committee was operational, things would have been different on that tourist bus two weeks ago.

I go to the same Sunday Mass that Tito Bert goes to so I asked him last Sunday if it was true that he conceptualized and managed the first crisis committee under Ate Glue. He said he did. So, I asked him, “why didn’t you help P-Noy organize one too”

Tito Bert just smiled as if to say that is not how things are done in this administration. I remembered that somebody else familiar with the ways of this administration told me that you have to wait to be asked. Unless you are asked, baka mapahiya ka lang.

So I asked Tito Bert if he was ready to help if he was asked and he said of course he will help. It is his duty to help. In fact, this administration can benefit from the many years of experience of people like Secretary Romulo. The next move is P-Noy’s.

According to Bobi, in their time, the President chaired the committee and Romulo (succeeded by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita) headed its executive committee. The Crisis Committee has a broad mandate to deal with any situation that threatened the state’s security or any problem it deemed to require the Palace’s attention and action.

The Committee functioned as the President’s institutionalized command, control and communications center for nearly all of the many crises Ate Glue’s administration confronted. The list includes the Abu Sayyaf raid on Dos Palmas and other acts of terrorism, the Oakwood and Manila Peninsula putsch attempts, the SARS pandemic.

It is a big committee, virtually a mini-Cabinet consisting of 18 Cabinet-level officials. Its executive committee though was a smaller group of eight, later expanded to 11. It included the secretaries of defense and the interior as well as the advisers for national security and “special concerns.”

Other members of this core group were the justice secretary and the presidential legal counsel, to ensure that the full force of the law was applied and that responses to a crisis were legal, the press secretary and the presidential chief of staff. A manual defines the responsibilities of everyone.

The Committee had a full-time secretariat, led then by an efficient Navy officer. The secretariat continuously monitored the national situation, documented its operations, and followed up the aftermath of a crisis to ensure its resolution. They housed the secretariat in a 24/7 “Presidential Situation Room,” which had an array of huge TV screens for monitoring the situation on one wall, located right under, and accessible from, the President’s private quarters at the Palace.

I commented to a Palace official they could have just ordered the siopao to be brought to the Palace situation room instead of using the Emerald Restaurant as a command center. Emerald didn’t even have a working television set for them to monitor the crisis.

Unfortunately, I was told that situation room no longer exists. It was no longer there when they took over the Palace. Ate Glue converted it to a wine cellar of sorts. They don’t even know what happened to the equipment in that situation room. Oh well… I guess after the Crisis Committee is reconstituted by P-Noy, they will have to get that situation room operational.

I understand that in Ate Glue’s time, members were called even in the wee hours of the morning on the President’s or Romulo’s orders as soon as a crisis erupted, or was expected to erupt. They would assemble at the situation room or the main dining room of the Executive House.

According to Bobi, it would either be the President or the executive secretary who would chair the meeting depending on the gravity of the situation. “The meetings almost always started with a comprehensive PowerPoint briefing on the particular crisis faced, often by officials assigned by the articulate National Security Adviser (now Rep.) Roilo Golez or by the soft-spoken National Intelligence Coordinating Agency chief Cesar Garcia (who is now President Aquino’s national security adviser).”

O ayun naman pala… so there is another experienced man in his Cabinet P-Noy can ask help from in the person of his national security adviser. Why wasn’t he asked? Maybe just like Bert Romulo, Cesar Garcia is also reluctant to volunteer his help unless he is asked. So, go ahead, P-Noy… ask because you and your inexperienced boys can sure use the help… for our country’s sake.

As Bobi puts it, the crisis committee is a good mechanism the President can use to tap the wisdom and experience of top officials and even eminent people outside government. The accuracy of reports or the appropriateness of proposed responses made by one official would be subject to intense scrutiny. Bobi recalls that there were many times when what could have been disastrous responses to a crisis were aborted after intensive, even heated, discussions in the crisis committee.

My real concern now is the danger that if the P-Noy administration gets the reputation of being less than competent because of cronyism or kabarkadas... we could get a replay of those dark days of Tita Cory’s watch when military adventurists lost their respect for her ability to govern. Once P-Noy starts losing popular support due to failure to govern well, we will all be in for rough days no one would desire to re-live.

Turf war

Rosan Cruz, Romy Bernardo and several other people texted me this joke:

Nag join forces na ang Samar (kabarkada) at Balay (Mar Roxas) groups to improve the governance of P-Noy. Ang tawag sa kanila ngayon ay…

SABLAY!

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. This and other past columns may be accessed at www.boochanco.net <http://www.boochanco.net/>