Ghost

If Noynoy Aquino had any astuteness in him, he would not have revived the public conversation about Mamasapano. However that conversation turns, he loses points.

Let sleeping dogs lie, the sages said. And let traumatic events die in the collective remembering of an injured people.

But Aquino and sagaciousness are two different things. First thing this week, he rouses the ghosts of Mamasapano by intriguing us about an “alternative version” to that tragedy.

That opened all the wounds. That brought back all the contentious characters. That got the public thinking hard about a tragedy many would rather forget about.

Having reawakened curiosity about what really happened, he undermined the standing official version of the event. He discredited the exhaustive inquiries conducted by the police and the legislature – leading to calls for the reopening of public hearings.

Suddenly, it is January 25 all over again. The public is curious about whether what we already know is all there is to know.

Then Aquino disappoints us. It turns out that the “alternative version” he pulled out from the hidden recesses of his mind is the unseemly version of what happened peddled by the MILF. That version of events, we will recall, was submitted only to Malaysia.

How could anyone, let alone the leader of a country, put at par the MILF’s piece of propaganda with the coherent reports put out by the Philippine Senate and the PNP Board of Inquiry?

But Noynoy, being Noynoy, did exactly that. He put a piece of cheap propaganda at par with official reports. That did not just elevate the MILF to equal standing with our organs of state, it pulled down the credibility of our organs of state.

The President’s stray utterance did not only sow confusion in the public mind, it caused one major paper to misquote his very words by reporting something about an “alternative truth” – an oxymoronic phrase.

The Palace spokesmen, however, lent even more credence to the President’s utterance by announcing yet more investigation into the over-investigated incident. I went back to the tape, so to speak, and cringed as the President spoke not only of the possibility of a second version to the event but also a third – all of them apparently on equal footing.

The President has since been trying to backpedal on the matter, with all the awkwardness befitting the odd utterance. But the ghosts of Mamasapano have been let out to haunt us once more.

The incident fuels speculation that what we are dealing with here is not an “alternative version” to a well-detailed event but a mind that tends to wander to an alternative universe.

Slumbering

It is sad enough that PCSO insiders report that the agency’s recently appointed chair Ayong Maliksi dozes off during board meetings and then snaps back to life uttering things unrelated to the discussion. It is even sadder the new chair does not seem to grasp the role of the chair as distinguished from that of management.

Maliksi should understand that being governor of a province is different from being chair of a public corporation. In the former, he might be able to act unilaterally, even imperiously. In the latter, he should abide by the internal procedures of the organization and limit his role to that of setting policy.

For instance, Maliksi requested the NBI to constitute a team of investigators without informing his board, much less seeking approval for the request. He formed task forces and committees also without board approval and more often involving personnel he brought in who have no familiarity with the PCSO’s operations.

Despite the ongoing rationalization of the PCSO staff, Maliksi brought in scores of hangers-on to the plantilla without regard for civil service rules and the internal policies of the agency. When told the PCSO did not have a budget for the many people he had hired, Maliksi instructed officers of the agency to draw money from the Charity Fund. The Charity Fund is supposed to be dedicated to the agency’s social welfare program.

To ensure the hiring of his people even if they lacked educational and civil service requirements, Maliksi issued a job order hiring his people as “confidential agents.”

Not surprisingly, the small army Maliksi brought to the PCSO are all from Cavite. About 30 of these hires are not reporting to any regular office of the PCSO. His “consultants,” all of them not organic to the PCSO, interfere in the regular functions of the agency. He has ordered government vehicles be dedicated to ferry his Cavite contingent to and from work.

On a regular basis, Maliksi bypasses agency committees and issues orders pertaining to operations directly to the PCSO employees involved.  He installed one Atty. Arnel Niadas as Board Secretary after summarily terminating the services of his predecessor. Contrary to standard governance practice, Maliksi allows his aide, Carlo Escalada, to perform executive duties even as he is not a regular employee.

Maliksi routes an average of 50 indigent assistance applications to the managers in charge each day. Most of these applications are from Cavite residents.

The new PCSO chair operates as if the rest of the board does not exist. He once directed the general manager to recall an order previously ruled upon by the PCSO Board.

Most seriously, Maliksi now appears to be dismantling the Small-Town Lottery program in a manner that appears to favor the gaming operations of Meridien Vista Gaming, a corporation owned by his buddy, Atong Ang.

The chairman might benefit from a sound seminar on proper corporate governance.