Noynoy's headache: Press Office revamp

PERSONALITIES: Pardon my intruding, but I will try guessing why President Noynoy Aquino is having a hard time reorganizing and staffing the Office of the Press Secretary.

My impression is that the problem arises from his forcing a reorganization based mainly on Personalities, and not so much on Objectives.

There are just too many “communication experts” claiming to have contributed to his victory last May and therefore entitled to some reward.

And since many of them claim star status, there is the problem not only of placement, but also of billing. Where will he place them, and how high or low in the hierarchy of power?

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RESOURCES: That is the People aspect of the problem. There is also the problem of Resources. Which valuable parcels of the communication structure of Malacanang should go to whose control?

For instance, there are Channels 4, 9 and 13 and a network of radio stations around the archipelago. A relative who thinks she is the top broadcast specialist in the group may not allow these valuable assets to fall into the hands of just anybody.

Then there is the gold mine that is the Philippine Information Agency. Who will control the traffic of juicy contracts emanating from the agency?

The idea of having a junta or a group, whose members happen to be strong-willed and ambitious personalities, to orchestrate the total communication concerto will not work. The inevitable infighting will just distract everybody.

There should be only one communication general manager.

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OBJECTIVE: One approach to try is to get a disinterested outsider/group to help the President plan and define what he wants Malacanang’s communication team to accomplish. (The wrangling aspirants cannot be trusted to do that.)

Define the objective in total disregard of all those jockeying for key positions. A brand-new President whose sincerity and integrity are beyond question will not run out of good people willing to serve despite the big sacrifice.

The objective having been defined, he can proceed to organize — possibly clustering units that have related tasks. Clustering will reduce the number of scattered bureaus, consolidate resources, smoothen workflow and tighten control.

The main clusters can then be integrated and made into a line department, if the President so desires, and a Cabinet secretary placed on top of it.

The top honcho could be called the Press Secretary. If the President thinks “press” sounds old and of limited application, it is easy to think of another name. (But the title “Press Secretary” has a historical and psychic ring to it.)

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RISKS: The planning and organizing will be done without regard for personalities — something the President may find difficult with all those aspirants with star complex making their presence felt.

After the boxes are drawn, arranged and connected in a table of organization, they will be filled from the horde of communication “experts” waiting to be chosen.

Some of the bigheads may not like what is ultimately given to them, but then you cannot please everyone.

These are just thoughts arising from the unusual delay in the formal organizing of the Office of the Press Secretary, the office with which we in media identify.

I speak up at the risk of being misunderstood. Okay lang, I’m used to that.

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SEATS FOR SALE?: Chairman Melo, please prove wrong the talk around town that it is so easy — if one has the millions and the right connect — to buy a party-list seat in the House of Representatives.

First expense involves daw motivating the Commission on Elections to declare a sector of the population as marginalized and the party-list applying for accreditation as the proper party to represent it.

Once allowed to join the game, the party-list, even of dubious qualifications, negotiates with the usual operators imbedded in the Comelec to produce a canvass showing that it has garnered enough votes to qualify for at least one House seat.

Then comes the expensive lakaran to convince the high and mighty commissioners that the party’s nominee is qualified even if he is neither marginalized nor truly representative of the party-list’s chosen sector.

Many party-list nominees deserve the House seats awarded them, but a few others stand out as not qualified but have presumably paid their way through.

Melo & Co. knows who they are.

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TYRANNY OF NUMBERS: There is something seriously wrong when a bloc of senators, by their sheer number, is able to thwart the early rectification of an error in the proclamation of a winner in the 2007 senatorial elections.

In the recount conducted in connection with the protest filed with the Senate Electoral Tribunal by loser Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel, he trounced Juan Miguel Zubiri by recovering more than 257,000 votes in seven provinces in Mindanao.

That avalanche of votes wiped out the slim lead of a little more than 18,000 votes with which Zubiri beat Pimentel in 2007.

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CARPIO DISSENT: Pimentel should have been declared winner by the SET, but Zubiri came back with his own protest saying he was cheated in more than 73,000 precincts all over the country.

The SET dominated by Zubiri’s allies gave due course to his counter-protest, delaying resolution of the dispute possibly till the waning days of the contested six-year term being enjoyed by Zubiri.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who chairs the SET, disagreed with the majority, but he was outnumbered.

Citing the tribunal’s own tabulation, Carpio pointed out that the revisiting of the contested ballots has shown that Zubiri cannot be expected to get more than 46,000 votes in all his protested precincts. Even if he does, he said, the number cannot surmount Pimentel’s lead.

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