‘Aquino’s official family will likely be a mix of professionals, technocrats, and campaign officials, with a few family friends.’
AS the nation awaits the announcement of the members of P-Noy’s official family, some are wondering at how the process of vetting, and eventually naming, the members of the cabinet who will help implement the President-elect’s "good governance" platform works.
Earlier, names were floated as part of a "Search Committee" that would accept nominees, vet them, and convert the same into a short list for the new president to eventually choose from.
Because we do not have a two-party system where it is understood from the very start that the president-elect’s party mates get to sit in the councils of his government, the search and vetting process casts a wider net. In the case of P-Noy, he was borne to electoral victory not only by his Liberal Party, but by volunteers all over the country who answered to his call for change, as well as political personalities and smaller alliances not part of his own party.
In such a setting, the political praxis has been to choose from among those who helped the campaign, regardless of partisan affiliation. Thus, we have heard names floated who have no political party affiliation, and come instead from civil society and the ranks of his volunteers. Which is as it should be in this coalition which persuaded some 15 million Filipinos to give President Benigno S. Aquino III the largest post-Edsa voting numbers.
It is after all in the crucible of the campaign that the president-elect himself sees and is able to gauge, at first hand, the abilities for good governance of the people he would include in his official family, as well as the other appointive positions he has to fill. As Sen. Kiko Pangilinan once told this writer, without reference to anybody in particular, "If you can’t even run a campaign properly, what business do you have being in sensitive positions in government?"
P-Noy, during the ninety-day campaign and even before that, must have recognized the management and people skills of those who were running, or helping run, the various components of his campaign. In that regard, he alone knows best who can be trusted to run departments of government efficiently. As he himself said, "I shall be responsible after all for the conduct of those I will appoint".
Working in a ninety-day campaign and making sure your endorsed candidate regularly tops the surveys, widens his lead against his opponents, is like working in a pressure cooker where the heat won’t abate until after all of 90 days. This pressure-cooker situation is itself the best test of competence and leadership abilities, in a polity where there are no properly differentiated political parties. Working in sensitive and problem-laden departments and agencies, whose moral moorings had been debauched by the present regime for purely transactional motives, means having to lead against the tide of great expectations.
Only the president-elect knows best how to gauge the contributions by way of effort and proper management that the key people in his campaign effected. And that tells him a lot about whether they too can, given the challenge and the opportunity, run sensitive posts in government well.
Which probably explains why the appointments are taking some time to finally announce. In previous transitions, names were announced one at a time, in continuing fashion, until the whole set of cabinet officials was completed. Thus, President Estrada named his cabinet members at the rate of one or two a day, even before he was officially proclaimed by Congress. And so did President FVR before him. In the case of Mrs. Arroyo, she was just segueing from a usurped reign to a dubiously-elected term, which really required few if any surprises. In the case of President Cory, the emergency situation required that key posts had to be filled up soonest, and so she verily completed her cabinet in a few days after her Club Filipino oath-taking.
So let us give the new president the breathing space to form his cabinet, and stop floating speculations which tend only to muddle the picture. Whether he likes it or not, he has a full cabinet meeting to preside upon on June 30, 2010, after he is done with the ceremonies of formal installation. He has a deadline, and it is a scant two weeks away. And by the looks of it, it will not be a partisan political affair, with names from civil society and other professions not necessarily allied with his own Liberal Party, being currently vetted, as we ourselves have learned. In fact, it should not be surprising if in the process of looking far and wide, some of Dona Gloria’s own appointees may be retained or re-cycled for the meantime. Which is just as well. Governance has to have continuity, even as the process of looking for replacements is yet unfinished.
In the last electoral campaign, it was never either clear who would be in Villar’s cabinet, as he ran a very party-oriented campaign, albeit managed by his corporate vice-presidents. If Gibo had been elected, the Lakas-Kampi stalwarts would have continued their happy days, or so they expected. In the case of Erap, he had time and again trotted his previous cabinet as among the best.
While not necessarily a "rainbow" coalition in the traditional mold of Joe de V, President Aquino’s official family will likely be a mix of professionals, technocrats, and campaign officials, with a few family friends added whose trust the new President has retained through the years.
LITO BANAYO
MALAYA Column for Thursday, 17 June 2010
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