Five months had elapsed since President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. took over the reins of government. The super-majority of the Philippine electorates installed him there for a reason. They wanted him to continue with the program of his predecessor, President Rodrigo R. Duterte who, months after he bowed out of office still has the highest and unprecedented approval rating accorded a Chief Executive.

PBBM is perceptibly doing his best. His primordial personal motivation is to restore the dignity and honor of his late father who had been pilloried since he was shanghaied by the Americans to Hawaii.

As President, he wants to achieve what the people want him to deliver. I am with him on these.

Unfortunately, PBBM has been hounded, in his first 100 days with problems that his first cabinet appointees had created.

Characters who were nowhere at the height of the campaign were unabashedly jockeying for appointments. The first issued memorandum circular indicated that the government bureaucracy will be cleansed of Duterte appointees. It was to be the initial indicator that the campaign pitch of "continuity" was a farce.

Marcos lost some vital assets when he allowed his former Executive Secretary to craft a memo circular that prompted Duterte appointees to gather their belongings promptly and left their posts for delicadeza.

I for one expected that "continuity" was a serious matter that needs a few months for Marcos appointees for some sort of apprenticeship before the Duterte guys bow out at least by end of December this year. I never expected that hyenas were salivating for every post in government and wanting to seat in the swivel chair pronto.

Sadly Marcos himself has tolerated the exodus. Never mind the members of the cabinet, but to allow the heads of working forces to be replaced quickly right after he took his oath of office was suicidal… a brutal mistake.

Good thing that some are protected by the security of tenure. The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police for example have fixed terms. Their promotions and conduct are governed by the rules and regulations, established career patterns, and criteria of the institutions. They are neither co-terminus, casual, or contractual. They retire at age 56.

On the other hand, a vital agency in the PNP called Internal Affairs Service which is mandated by law as the institutional watchdog for the organization is not spared by characters scrambling to head IAS. They cannot even wait for the incumbent Inspector General Alfegar Triambulo to finish his term.

Triambulo, a lawyer, is a Duterte appointee. It is during his term that IAS was really up to its mandate. To date, IAS resolved more than 17,000 cases involving erring police officers, more than 2,000 of whom were recommended for dismissal. PNP records showed that IAS had zero backlogs as Triambulo had disposed of all of the cases brought before his office. This performance is a complete reversal of the dismal 2.5 percent disposition rate of the previous administration.

Last September, from out of the blue a complaint of sexual harassment was filed against Triambulo before the Ombudsman. Triambulo dismissed it as a demolition job. When President Duterte heard of the complaint, he emerged from his retirement and defended his appointee.

"Ganito yan, ang alam ko, pag gumawa ka ng maganda at maayos, siraan at sisiraan ka talaga dyan, Matagal na yan. Susmerosep (It's like this, what I know is, if you do something good and well, you will be slandered. That has going on for a long time)!" Duterte was quoted by the Davao media.

Filing a complaint against a performing official invites attention. It looks like there is more to it than just the allegation of sexual harassment which happened, as shown on the complaint, happened one year and two months before the complaint was filed. The motive is obviously to demonize Triambilo and the working force at the IAS.

Who could be the person who is behind the black propaganda? There was somebody, whose name escaped me, who precipitately applied for the post of Inspector General even before BBM was sworn to office. I think it was a futile exercise as her records must have militated against her. Triambulo is only holding on to his exceptional performance to ward off the scheming and salivating fools who think they have the attributes to be an Inspector General.