Post-Prod - My Viewpoint

When I welcomed the guests to last Tuesday's Manila Overseas Press Club Forum, I didn't know it would be the last public appearance of Presidential Chief of Staff Aprodicio Laquian in that capacity. Neither, I am sure, did he.

In my brief opening remarks, I made reference to Mr. Laquian's own characterization of himself as a "snake charmer." That was his way of describing how he would handle that venomous snake pit known as Malacañang Palace. I reminded him that snake charmers, or anyone who handles poisonous snakes, often get bitten by those cantankerous reptiles. The good news, however, is that the handlers often develop a high level of tolerance, if not an outright immunity, to the venom. Our best and most sincere wish for Mr. Laquian was that he develop not only that high tolerance, but an immunity to the venom that he was already absorbing and could expect to absorb. Unfortunately, we will never know whether our wish would have been granted. Mr. Laquian was done in, not by the venomous bites of Palace snakes, but by his own mouth. In the one of the rare times he made an exception to his own rule of "scarcity value", he fell into the trap of "plenty talk, plenty mistake, big talk, big mistake."

Actually, Prod Laquian had his heart in the right place. He said he didn't intend to criticize the President, but to merely make an objective assessment of his management style. Neither was it his ambition to change the personal style of a President who had obtained 40 percent of the vote by an electorate that knew exactly what sort of person they were choosing as President. The Filipino people, Laquian noted, did not elect a "philosopher king" or the "best manager." All the Chief of Staff intended to do was put a rational system around the President to gather as much information as could be gathered within typically limited periods of time to support the latter's decision-making.

Decision-making, Laquian claimed, was particularly difficult in an atmosphere such as that prevailing in Malacañang which he called the epitome of the "transactional management environment." Bargaining was an integral part of that process and the tradeable currency was power, influence, money, among other things he could mention in public. Moreover, we have a President, Laquian noted, who is "not conceptual, but instinctive", who has "emotional intelligence", is "personalistic" with a "soft heart", is "populist" and "charismatic", who has "no tolerance for process." Still, Laquian maintained, he was not fazed by this "unpredictability" but was determined to build a system which could nevertheless support uncertainty as well as the particular and peculiar characteristics of his boss.

All of which, of course, is quite honest and straightforward. From a purely academic point of view, it makes a lot of offense. But from a political viewpoint, it is dynamite. It also gave those snakes at Malacañang the perfect opportunity to attack and accuse him of talking too much and, worse, disloyalty. I understand that Prod Laquian acknowledged the gaffe and lost no time in submitting an irrevocable resignation. He acted in good faith and with all good intentions, but he realized too late that in this country, these are not always enough. If he is to be faulted, it is for his failure to realize that in a roomful of media practitioners, including a sizeable contingent from the Malacañang Press Corps, plus three TV network news cameras preserving everything he said on video tape, his exercise in objectivity and candor was, in fact, a political disaster waiting to happen.

By all accounts, Prof. Prod Laquian possessed all the training and academic credentials needed for the tough job of chief of staff. It is clear he didn't have, never pretended to have, and didn't give the impression he was particularly interested in having, the political savvy essential to his survival. Too bad! If he had at least kept his own counsel, he might have stayed around long enough to establish his value to the Estrada administration.

What next? Well, the return of all power in the Executive Office, including that of the Presidential Management Staff, to the Executive Secretary is apparently temporary. But the experiment with the Office of the Chief of Staff is, for all intents and purpose, dead and buried. Whether we will see a resurrection of a Laquian clone will depend on how Ronnie Zamora runs with this ball.