Institutional damage

A staunch defender of President Arroyo once found himself in the middle of a pack of critics, who said the Chief Executive would leave behind badly damaged democratic institutions.

The President’s defender did not refute the observation about institutional damage – something the cantankerous GMA might take against him. What he said was that institutional damage could not have been possible without the willing cooperation of people.

With what is happening in the final days of the Arroyo administration (or at least we think these are the final days), we can see, sadly, how right that GMA defender was.

Despite the clear constitutional ban on midnight appointments, people are readily accepting midnight promotions or grabbing any opportunity dangled by the President to bag sinecures in government, preferably positions with fixed terms.

Most members of the Supreme Court, who need to go back to high school English (if not law school), have willingly “interpreted” a brief, clear provision in the Constitution on midnight appointments, and never mind if they will forever be remembered as the “Arroyo Supreme Court.”

There are members of the executive branch and the judiciary who will do anything ordered by Malacañang, even if it is patently illegal, to keep their jobs or win a promotion.

Not even a threat from several presidential candidates to invalidate all the midnight appointments can stop those people from accepting the eleventh-hour gifts from GMA.

The appointees do not bother questioning their qualifications, undoubtedly believing in the infinite wisdom of the appointing power.

Where there is no vacancy, President Arroyo creates them, without so much as a brief formal notice of eviction to the ousted officials.

If no one accepts the questionable appointments, particularly in the judiciary, how can the President damage the institution?

But instead of saying no, people are willing to be co-opted. Their attitude is that at the very least, their appointments or promotions will be in their résumés forever, and they need not qualify that they held the positions for only a brief period, until a new president (we hope) invalidates the appointments.

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Some of the appointments are creating strange situations.

The public hasn’t heard a peep from taipan Al Yuchengco, the newly appointed (supposedly) ambassador to Germany. As of about a week ago, the Germans still had not been notified of any recall or change in the Philippine ambassador to their country – not Berlin, and not the mission in Manila, which happens to be housed in the Yuchengco building in Makati. As far as the Germans are concerned, Delia Albert is still the Philippine ambassador to Berlin.

If ever Yuchengco is formally nominated, there will be a new president by the time he gets his agrement – that is if the Germans do not feel insulted about the way Filipinos conduct diplomacy. Surely Yuchengco, a former Philippine representative to the United Nations, knows the diplomatic process. So why did he accept the appointment?

Over at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the newly appointed board of trustees tried to oust Isabel Caro Wilson this week as president.

Their reason? She had been arrogant and “unwelcoming” of new members. But the unflappable Wilson refused to be ousted, pointing out that she had in fact welcomed the new appointees warmly, and even looked at the faux jewelry new member Paolo Ma. Diosdado Casurao had tried to sell during a recent board meeting to the trustees, including Rustan’s Nedy Tantoco.

Another new trustee, Antonio Yap, owner of the Padova College in Mabalacat, Pampanga, is currently reviewing all the contracts for the development of the 62-hectare prime reclaimed land that belongs to the Cultural Center of the Philippines. About 47 hectares of that area can still be developed for commercial or other purposes.

These days other government employees who are skilled in trimming gardens and toenails are starting to demand cushy positions in the Luneta Park administration and the Pag-IBIG Fund, just like the lucky Anita Carpon and Armando Macapagal, respectively. The two obviously believe they deserve their astounding promotions and accepted the posts.

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Will the elections next month change anything? When the typical voter sees candidates on the campaign trail, what comes to mind first is not whether the candidate is honest or competent, but whether his victory will lead to a job (or its loss) or a promotion for the voter or his relatives. The overriding question is, “What’s in it for me?”

When the euphoria of the first people power revolt started waning, the late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin grasped a basic problem in this country: Filipinos, he said, were too afflicted with the “me first,” the kanya-kanya or to each his own attitude, unable to internalize that what’s good for the nation eventually redounds to the good of the individual.

Many years after his death, the situation has not changed. Even the Catholic Church is looking out for its own interests, ready to support even the immoderately greedy as long as Church advocacies will be protected.

If President Arroyo and her allies can get away with murder, and even mass murder, it is because the people allow them to do so.

It has been said often enough: we deserve the president and the government we get. We are accomplices to institutional damage.

Unless something is done to change this state of affairs, it will be accurate to say that Filipinos and GMA deserve each other.