Untidy relief
Nonetheless, whether by design or not, unavoidable is the fact that at the moment, both Remulla and the Palace have so far spectacularly failed to get everybody on the same page regarding Torre’s relief.
Daily TribuneNonetheless, whether by design or not, unavoidable is the fact that at the moment, both Remulla and the Palace have so far spectacularly failed to get everybody on the same page regarding Torre’s relief.
“Difficult but necessary” are the telling words for why there are still no easy and tidy answers for the sudden relief of Philippine National Police chief Nicolas Torre III.
Uttered without explanation last Wednesday by Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, “difficult and necessary” stands for what a political observer said was “the absence of any sort of face-saving platitudes from the Palace” for Torre.
Remulla’s follow-up statements also didn’t inspire confidence, even raising more questions regarding Mr. Marcos Jr.’s choices in arriving at his decision to relieve Torre.
“There comes a crossroads in a President’s decision-making that he has to make the tough but necessary decisions to push his agenda forward,” Remulla said.
That readily raises two intriguing questions: What crossroads did Mr. Marcos Jr. face exactly with Torre’s stint as PNP chief that led to his relief? And what exactly is Mr. Marcos Jr.’s agenda for the PNP?
But, as matters stand, Remulla and the Palace are yet seemingly incapable of candidly or honestly answering those complicated questions.
Nonetheless, Remulla excused his inability to come clean by invoking “executive privilege.”
A caveat, however. Both Remulla’s and the Palace’s seeming incapacity to be candid possibly indicates they are intending for it to be so.
For all we know, both Remulla and the Palace are now marinating their hopefully forthcoming clarification by frequently assessing the public mood to the President’s decision.
In fact, in the face of the negative public reaction to Torre’s relief, Remulla quickly floated the obvious contingency plan that the popular police general had been offered another equally significant post in the administration. The Palace has since confirmed the offer.
Nonetheless, whether by design or not, unavoidable is the fact that at the moment, both Remulla and the Palace have so far spectacularly failed to get everybody on the same page regarding Torre’s relief.
As a consequence, everyone outside of Mr. Marcos Jr.’s immediate decision circle is scrambling with their own reaction and valid or invalid judgment on the issue.
Sorting out all these proffered thoughts and reactions, one view stands out: Did Torre go intolerably rogue by publicly defying his superiors?
A view which Senator Ping Lacson, a former PNP chief himself, strongly emphasized when he said Torre acted “beyond his authority” by unilaterally reshuffling the top police brass without the blessings of his superiors and then refusing to back down when ordered to do so by the National Police Commission (Napolcom).
Remulla said the “Napolcom order, among other things, was part of the consideration of the President.”
Torre, for his part, said the reshuffling controversy had been settled “internally.”
At any rate, further developments in the Torre affair remain inconclusive and bear close watching as I write this.
Torre last Wednesday said he was taking a leave to reflect but emphasized that he wasn’t bitter, insisting that he still supported the President but wanted to be clarified about his “new” appointment.
He didn’t answer questions on what he thought caused his relief and on the other thorny issues raised against the police organization in the wake of his ouster.
For his part, Mr. Marcos Jr. has maintained his silence. The Chief Executive, for instance, hasn’t indicated he is ready to openly say whether or not he got the tough Torre decision right.