A wishy-washy state of government

Three consecutive headlines in this paper starting last Wednesday that caught my attention: “SC: Truth body unconstitutional”, clearly show the feeble, indecisive and irresolute attitude of the Palace in handling matters of grave national concern. In this case, one of the hallmarks of the President’s election promises – to create a Truth Body to uncover the sins of the Arroyo administration.

The next day’s headline: “Gov’t to appeal SC ruling vs truth body”, seemed to show someone in the Palace had balls after all and was willing to square things off with the SC. But, and this is a considerable ‘but’, the very next day, another Palace executive announced that the Palace was taking off its fighting gloves and that, as the headlines read that day: “Palace willing to issue new EO on truth body.”

Susmariosep! These sanamagans cannot only make up their minds but also are not able to think right at all. One thing sure, many of the President’s men are not qualified for their positions. The President has to make some firm, honest and clear-cut executive judgment calls and put his house in order soon lest it collapses in disgrace and to the peril of all of us.

There are members of his cabinet that do display untrustworthiness and incapacity. Let’s start with the secretary of local government, Jesse Robredo. His role in the hostage crisis was laughable – but very painful and damaging to the country. It seems this guy never heard of command responsibility. Despite not submitting his name to the Commission on Appointments, the President still allows him to act as secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government.

What about Sec. Lim of the Department of Tourism? When he was appointed, many in the industry thought he was going to be a good tourism chief. After all, he was the first to be named in that position coming from the tourism industry. Remember he managed a group of resorts belonging to the Sorianos in the Palawan area where it seems he did at least an acceptable enough job. I was one of those hopeful and felt he was a good choice, too.

But goodness gracious, just days after he took over, he got into a quagmire of clumsy, ham-fisted situations that are not only hard to understand why he got himself into but also showed that after all he may not be fit for the job. To start with, his less-than-judicious response to the macabre hostage-taking crisis at the Luneta where he displayed an unnecessary and hollow ‘diplomatese’ when the best position he could have taken was not to get too involved in the tragedy. But he did and made the matter a tourism issue, which could have been avoided to the degree that it developed into if he only kept his mouth a little shut. Lim put himself in the limelight and only has himself to blame for the repercussions that followed.

There are, of course, two other issues that may haunt Lim out of a job. I honestly hope not because I think he still deserves another chance for so long as he does his homework thoroughly and professionally.

The most comic and embarrassing of these was how he handled the ‘Pilipinas Kay Ganda’ slogan fiasco. What did Lim do about this? He could not have missed the awesome negativism that swept over the entire audience during the launching of that slogan. He could have made Romano resign and take the blame. But then again Lim obviously had approved the entire slogan and the graphics but did not have the wisdom to see it as the public did and to have the whole thing immediately scrapped. It’s another case of command responsibility down the drain.

Sadly, sagacity and prudence seem to be lacking virtues in our President, who very generously accepted Romano’s resignation “with regrets.” In a previous column I suggested that the President express his regrets to his countrymen for accepting Romano’s resignation “with regrets.” He has not done so but many readers, especially those in the tourism and travel industry are, from what I hear – waiting.

Another intriguing issue is that of the Open Skies Policy. Many who know tourism better than Lim and his political underlings are aghast at how this policy has been established. Robert Lim Joseph, chairman of the board of Travel Cooperative of the Philippines presents himself as one who knows how a proper Open Skies Policy should be formulated. Certainly not the way the Palace has done it. All I know about Mr. Joseph is that he was a top executive representing many foreign carriers flying into the Philippines at one time.

On this basic experience, he may in fact have a better idea of how to formulate a proper air policy. I don’t know. All I know is that he is against allowing free and uncontrolled entry into the country of just about any airline without these giving local carriers corresponding privileges and rights to fly into their countries, too. Sounds reasonable enough, particularly coming from someone who may know a little bit more about foreign carriers’ tactics and schemes than the so-called and proven inept, ‘technocrats’ in Malacañang.

Some people who oppose the Open Skies Policy that Lim has promulgated naughtily suggest that there may possibly be some interest in getting a few free flights in these foreign carriers, which the local carriers, losing so much money these days, cannot be so generous as to be able to grant. It’s a wicked thought, I think, and does seem misplaced. But in this country, that’s a thought to think about, isn’t it?

During a Commission on Appointments confirmation of Lim, which Lim did not get primarily due to Mr. Joseph’s objections, the latter was asked what he thought of the ‘Kay Ganda’ slogan. He quickly retorted that it was ‘idiotic’. Lim reacted to this by saying Mr. Joseph was being personal. I may not fully agree with Mr. Joseph’s ways, but in this case I don’t think it is ‘personal’ to call an idiotic idea ‘idiotic’. What else can you call it?

By the way, in that same CA hearing, Education Secretary Armin Luistro’s confirmation was also derailed by the opposition of a Caloocan City urban poor group who filed an affidavit claiming that Luistro failed to protect students of private schools. Strange that an urban poor group would not want a candidate for Education Secretary to be named for failing to protect private school students, who naturally are not elements that properly belong to the urban poor. What is going on here?

Luistro’s background in education may seem to qualify him for the position but there are some quirks that make him look unsympathetic to certain groups, including the media. Wasn’t he the one who, during his first press conference, said that he did not need the media?

It is time for the President to do some introspection and to assess the respective capabilities and worth of the members of his government and kick out the undeserving and unworthy. He may have high popularity and public acceptance rankings now but any more tumultuous upsets like the case of the Truth Commission can quickly bring this in a downward spiral that will again bring our people the despair of not trusting their leaders and losing hope for any bright future. Sad, because while we still cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, there seems to be some flickering there.