Comfortable

A humorous text message kept coming to my phone over the weekend, suggesting people kept forwarding the same to friends. The message was about Mar Roxas confusing his role as Interior Secretary with that of interior designer.

Until Janet Lim Napoles finally settled inside a small bungalow inside Fort Sto. Domingo, Roxas did appear to be the person principally concerned about her accommodation. At Camp Crame, Napoles was reportedly installed at Roxas’ office.

Before she was moved to the Makati City Jail, Mar and his gang (including the funny duo of Carandang and Lacierda) inspected the room in which she would be kept. This even as a team from the PNP performed the same inspection just hours earlier.

Before Napoles moved to Fort Sto. Domingo, Roxas again inspected her quarters. The Secretary of the Interior took it upon himself to itemize the repairs needed before the prisoner was transferred.

This man puts great attention to details. We can all be assured that the quarters to which Napoles is confined will be more than habitable. Surely the toilet and bath will have running water, although that convenience is said to be scarce in that elevated camp. We are not sure if a water heater is attached to the shower.

Sooner or later, we will get that detail from Mar. He has been surprisingly available for media interviews on matters Napoles. So available has he been in fact that at one point he slipped (Freudian or otherwise) and addressed his prisoner “Ma’am.”

That slip sparked a merry conversation among very observant Netizens. Roxas, some said, was so engrossed with Napoles’ safety and comfort that he began imagining himself to be her errand boy, attendant to the prisoner’s every whim and fancy. Napoles’ captor has become her caregiver.

The past few days have been hectic for both Secretary Mar and Ma’am Janet, so hectic they could lose their sense of proportion. Give them a break. Let them rest, Mar in particular.

We all saw how obsessive he becomes when he locks onto a task. Recall that after the Serendra blast, Mar kept visiting the scene of the explosion and eventually emerged as government’s resident expert on gas leaks and its dire consequences. He embraced the investigation full time, anxious that the public might not accept the official verdict about what happened.

During the Serendra blast investigation, as during the long search for quarters acceptable to Napoles’ benchmark for comfort and safety, Mar was talking before the media all the time. It was as if he was not getting enough television face time to sear his image onto the public mind.

The man is working too hard. Perhaps he should learn to delegate some of his duties to underlings —especially the inspection of toilets and the choice of refrigerator units for plunderers. Unless, of course, attending to the details give him such sense of fulfillment.

Look, even the most minor starlets hire personal assistants (alalays) to attend to the details and hand them tissue paper when they appear ready to sneeze. Mar has the entire PNP at his disposal.

Surely he could find people to do chores for him — and make his constant claim that Napoles receives no special treatment sound a little more credible.

Protocol

While we were all engrossed with Janet Napoles suddenly turning up at the Palace and Mar Roxas endlessly inspecting detention options for her, a matter of some diplomatic significance happened.

President Aquino was all set and ready to go to China, presumably looking forward to the fine Chinese food he prefers and a nice break from all the tedious duties he had to perform lately, including driving prisoners to police headquarters. Then suddenly the trip was scrapped.

Despite Edwin Lacierda’s endless protestations about this government’s transparency, we are getting about as much information about this event as we did three years ago about the providence of a small Porsche and its eventual disposal.

One seriously underplayed newspaper report suggested the President was “dis-invited” by Beijing, calling up all the messy images of territorial disputes and dead hostages. If this is indeed what happened, we shouldn’t be taking it sitting down. Our freshly acquired BRP Alcaraz should go showboating somewhere as the BRP del Pilar did at Scarborough Shoal.

Other subsequent reports, however, suggest the President was not invited in the first place.

The invitation apparently was for a high-level delegation for the opening of a trade fair. A high-level delegation is quite different from a presidential delegation. Somebody goofed here.

When the head of government joins an official delegation to a foreign country, the protocols change drastically. The visiting head of government will need to be met by his counterpart. Security arrangements will have to be made. Perhaps a state banquet will be organized.

Beijing must have been surprised by the fact that our president decided to hitch up with the Philippine delegation. They might have been unready with all that protocol might demand. They must have pleaded with our diplomats to please not include President Aquino in what is really an event way beneath his rank.

Just as Cabinet secretaries should not go around inspecting toilets themselves, the President cannot attend minor trade fairs abroad.

Sadly, heads of government are prisoners of their post. They cannot visit a foreign country without waiting to be invited just as they cannot race sports cars deep in the night. The protocols are strict.

Somebody must tell us why a fiasco like this happened.