EDITORIAL – Crossed signals

Earlier, Malacañang officials said they wouldn’t mind if officials of the Public Estates Authority resigned en masse. The statement was issued as the PEA reeled from accusations by one of its directors that a short stretch of road at the reclaimed area of Manila Bay was overpriced by as much as P600 million. Joemari Gerochi quit as board director, but none of the other PEA officials followed his lead.

The other day Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said PEA officials had finally expressed willingness to submit their resignations to President Arroyo. Tiglao said the PEA executives led by chairman Ernest Villareal conveyed the message through Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Avelino Cruz. There was only one problem: the PEA board members were unaware of their reported offer to resign. Villareal also denied talking to Cruz. Until yesterday, the PEA officials maintained that quitting could be seen as an admission of guilt. For his part, PEA whistle-blower Sulficio Tagud said resigning would deprive him of access to documents related to the road scandal.

As Malacañang and the PEA board got their signals mixed, President Arroyo, who was wrapping up a brief visit to Vietnam, told the small Filipino community in Hanoi that she was making it her administration’s policy to have bureau directors and board members of government-owned and controlled corporations go on leave pending the resolution of graft cases against them. The President did not mention any particular government agency. She may have to rethink this policy, which could open the floodgates to harassment suits that could paralyze certain government offices.

The PEA is not a constitutional body but an agency under the Office of the President. The Chief Executive can replace the entire PEA board any time, but she is understandably reluctant to do so until the controversy over the road named after her late father has been resolved. It doesn’t take a high IQ, however, to read those statements emanating from Malacañang as indications that the President wants to replace the PEA board.

Why don’t the board directors just quit? Rare is the public servant who gets the message that his resignation is awaited at Malacañang. And why doesn’t the President simply summon PEA officials to a closed-door meeting and tell them that she wants them out, quitting would be a graceful exit, she has enough problems and could they be one less problem for her?

In this country, kicking out a public official can be as difficult as extracting a decayed tooth from abscessed gums. The PEA mess reflects badly on both the quality of lower ranking public officials and the national leadership.