EDITORIAL – Loose cannon in the Arroyo Cabinet

Battered as she is from all sorts of enemy fire from the outside, it seems incredible how President Arroyo can continue to remain impervious to the hammering she is getting from what can only be described as friendly fire from within.

Two members of her Cabinet, both surnamed Gonzales - Justice Secretary Raul and National Security Adviser Norberto - are so voluble and so tactless and reckless in their endless public pronouncements that they are like loose cannons wreaking havoc in the Arroyo household.

So incredibly damaging are these two with their mouths that the only redeeming factors anyone can think of in their favor is that either they are so loyal they will die for Arroyo, or they are exceptionally brilliant Arroyo will collapse without their guidance.

Those redeeming factors are, however, all based on conjecture. There is no plausible leg of charitable proof they can stand on without endangering the exquisite balancing act Arroyo has so far succeeded in pulling off all this time.

These two Cabinet members are not exceptionally loyal, as evidenced by their previous ties. And they could not be exceptionally brilliant, as evidenced by the noise they generate - shallow waters, remember?

Yet why does Arroyo continue to keep them? Our suspicion is that this whole uncomfortable association works the other way around. The gratuitous flow could be starting from Arroyo. Maybe it is Arroyo who is indebted to them.

And, for all the things that have been raised against her, whether plausible of plain wild, Arroyo does know how to repay a debt of gratitude. Even here in Cebu, where her winning margin of about a million votes came from, we see real evidences of how she pays back IOUs.

The problem with the equation is that Arroyo is not the government, and these two garrulous officials are not working for Arroyo. They only seem to be, owing to their Cabinet positions. In truth, their work is still in the service of the Filipino people.

Arroyo may be beholden to them, but ordinary citizens are not. She may have some use for them but the citizens do not. The way the two are functioning, they are an entire waste of money that is better spent elsewhere. If she can find it in her to fire them, she must.