Real NSC score

Real NSC score | Daily Tribune

Pointing out to them that the previous regime had done the exact same thing to a sitting vice president silenced the self-deceiving apologists of Vice President Sara Duterte who were decrying her expulsion from the National Security Council (NSC).

Still, while sneering about the contemptuous hypocritical double standard of the Veep’s defenders is vicariously tempting, it is nothing more than a hugely entertaining aside to the real issue surrounding the NSC itself.

In fact, the Veep’s summary expulsion is indeed “irrelevant” compared to the larger issue of the incumbent making sure that national security officials speak and act as one on pressing national security issues.

So far, this larger issue hasn’t caught the public’s attention. But it is a pressing problem. If it weren’t, the Chief Executive wouldn’t have gone to the extent of reorganizing the NSC.

In fact, if we are to speak naughtily of the Veep’s ouster from the NSC, deliberately easing her out of another high-profile position provided a convenient distraction from the real issue surrounding the NSC. She was useful in that respect.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, the real issue with the NSC is that the incumbent “has been unable to run a tight security team,” observes Marites Danguilan Vitug, a news colleague well versed in security affairs.

So, if Ms. Vitug read the room right, the NSC reorganization was never directed at the Veep. Neither was the reorganization a case of the incumbent securing his back against prominent political personalities with ambiguous positions vis-a-vis China, like the Veep and her camp, messing with his foreign policy decisions and strategies.

Instead, it seems that the real score is about the Chief Executive finally reckoning with how his own national security team is really dealing with national security issues.

Mr. Marcos Jr.’s main national security burden, therefore, is about him putting his team on notice to shape itself up into a tightly coordinated and efficient team.

In all probability, this is because Marcos presumably senses that “with the country facing a generational and strategic challenge that is China, the Philippines cannot afford to be at war with itself.”

As to why this has become an issue, it is likely because two of the three senior officials whom the Chief Executive often relies on to craft relevant policies about the national security situation seem to personally dislike each other.

The three national security officials are National Security Adviser Eduardo Año, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, and Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo.

According to Ms. Vitug, “It is an open secret in the defense establishment that he (Año) and Teodoro do not get along well, thus the absence or lack of coordination. It appears, though, that the NSA and defense secretary are both comfortable with Manalo.”

Personality dynamics aside, all three senior officials nonetheless staunchly support Mr. Marcos Jr.’s bold position “of standing up to China and asserting the country’s sovereign rights.”

Yet, even if the three are one behind Marcos’s policy, it seems that the lack of coordination has led to needless bureaucratic infighting among other senior officials tasked by the three to implement it.

So much so that there seem to be telltale unresolved irritants like who only can speak on West Philippine Sea (WPS) issues or what exactly are the correct messages to send out to the world at large.

Such an uncoordinated state of affairs is understandably not in the best interest of the Chief Executive, who has to be quickly reactive and nimble in a fast-changing national security situation heavily influenced or undone by geopolitics.

Marcos understandably does need to do something as quickly as possible about those bureaucratic foul-ups. Which is why what happens next after the NSC is reorganized bears close watching.