Team of rivals

To show that unity is not merely campaign rhetoric, the president-elect is being encouraged by his elder sister to recruit even from his political opponents’ camps.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. can set up a “team of rivals” like Abraham Lincoln, according to BBM’s sis, Sen. Imee Marcos.

Senator Imee, now referred to as the incoming president’s Bong Go-type SAP – not special assistant, but Super Ate ng Pangulo – has said she has recommended some kakampinks and dilawans, whom she did not name, to her brother for his Cabinet.

Bongbong Marcos appears to be receptive to the idea, with his recruitment of Arsenio Balisacan as socioeconomic planning secretary. While Balisacan is no passionate kakampink-dilawan, he held the same Cabinet post under Noynoy Aquino.

Bangko Sentral Governor Benjamin Diokno, the incoming finance chief, also served as Corazon Aquino’s budget undersecretary, and budget chief under Joseph Estrada and Rodrigo Duterte.

Last Friday, Diokno discussed his new role as head of a department with jurisdiction over the two largest revenue-generating agencies, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs.

He downplayed the country’s record-high P12.68-trillion debt and said his bigger concern is tax collection. But he’s cool to new taxes and wants to focus on reviving the pandemic-derailed growth first. “The higher the growth, the higher the taxes,” he said in an interview.

“I think what is important in any tax system is that it’s got to be fair and perceived to be fair by everyone,” Ben Diokno said. “You should show fairness so that people will willingly pay.”

He wasn’t referring though to the P23-billion estate tax that the BIR under Duterte has been trying to collect from the Marcoses, but to the recent controversy over Megaworld’s tax payments.

We don’t know if Diokno has discussed the estate tax issue with his incoming boss, who happens to be the Marcos estate’s administrator – a role that the president-elect will now probably hand over to someone else. But we’ll hold the incoming finance chief to his stand on the importance of public perception in fair and efficient tax collection.

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BBM surely must be buoyed by the widespread positive reaction to his choices for his economic team, and the perception that his main consideration is competence rather than political loyalties.

He must also have noticed the unenthusiastic reaction to his Cabinet appointments that are seen to be political. The Department of Justice, for one, requires someone with an ingrained belief that justice is blind, especially since it has administrative supervision over the Presidential Commission on Good Government. The PCGG’s principal task, as we all know, is going after the ill-gotten wealth of one particular clan and cronies.

Cabinet appointments, of course, are a prerogative of the chief executive. And really, if you think justice is blind in this country and there’s still hope for accountability in ill-gotten wealth, you must still believe in Santa Claus and unicorns.

There are people who, while wishing a new administration well at the start of its term and lauding the selection of the economic team, are noting that the brilliant Marcos Senior also picked the best and brightest for his government, also partly politically color-blind, but look where that got us.

Such doubters point out that even the best and brightest from across the political spectrum can only go so far when absolute power absolutely corrupts the leadership.

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Seeing the positive reaction to his economic team members, BBM must be seeing the logic in his sister’s call for a color-blind “team of rivals.” It could show sincerity in his unity theme, and disarm and dilute the opposition while it is still trying to regroup following its election debacle.

That’s nearly 22.2 million Filipinos, over 15 million of whom were ardent kakampinks. SAP Imee, who has her father’s brains, seems to understand that winning over this segment of the population, at least at the dawn of Marcos 2.0, is better than dismissing them as a pack of irrelevant losers, as some of the victors’ gloating minions are doing.

The cynical version of this approach to opponents is military strategist Sun Tzu’s advice to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Barack Obama, when elected president, surprised everyone with his selection of Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state, like Lincoln did with his rival, William Seward. (Lincoln also recruited two other rivals into his official family). But these were rivals for the presidential nomination within their respective political parties, which were easier choices.

Balisacan is not that strange a choice for BBM: the incoming NEDA chief was born and bred in Ilocos Norte, obtaining his bachelor of science degree in agriculture, magna cum laude, from the Mariano Marcos State University – yes, that’s Marcos Senior’s dad.

Junior is saddled with lamentations that, compared with the country’s neighbors notably Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea, which also had post-war authoritarian regimes, the Philippines got the wrong strongman.

Those who want some idea of what happened to us in those early years can check out this link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064227408532297.

The strongman’s son has promised that Marcos 2.0 will be better. A team of rivals would be an encouraging start.