Betrayal more than distrust

“It is difficult to rely on a directionless flake. The absence of trust ranges from distrust to doubt. Spinning the term on its head we quickly come to the term ‘betrayal.’

In responding to the effective stripping of her Cabinet posting even as she continues to co-chair the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD), Leonor Robredo justifies the apparent loss of trust by dwelling on the trivial and unimportant. Her initial comments even before she’s broken the ice with ICAD colleagues rightfully wary of her competence focus both on an ambitious Cabinet title and the hierarchy’s prudence in spreading confidential data that deal with the drug campaign’s law enforcement side.

Given that she haphazardly requested for substantial money while declaring that henceforth, health issues rather than law enforcement will take priority, plus a demand to peek into a highly classified list of drug traffickers that ostensibly includes her party mates in the opposition, fears of her leanings have grown rather than receded.

Rather than clarify her objectives and justify such directions, some of which directly negate processes the public approves of, she’s chosen the least important denominator by addressing her Cabinet membership issue.

Either the lady is incredibly dense or she’s playing the double agent card. More likely, a mistress of intrigue, Robredo is deflecting the rather ugly question of betraying the President’s trust, to questions of position titles and Cabinet memberships, so in character for an oppositionist who prefers to focus on aspects that don’t matter versus those that do.

These do not bode well for the greater public. At the risk of being blasphemous and irreverent, note the ugly allegory where a traitorous Judas is invited to the table to share both supper and secrets.

Focusing on a prospective albeit eventually denied Cabinet post, and only then speaking on questions of trust, Robredo remarked, “Hindi ko na problema kung di pa sila nagkakasundo sa role ko. Basta sa ‘kin, lahat na pwede kong gawin, gagawin ko (It’s not my problem if they haven’t agreed on my role. For me, all I can do, I will do.).”

“Kung wala silang tiwala, bakit nila ako dinesignate? Kung pagkakait nila ‘yung information, nasa sa kanila ‘yun (If they didn’t trust me, why appoint me? It’s on them if they will not share information with me.).”

Immediately she’s tainted the President’s trust in her with an accusation of disunity, indecision and a brazen declaration that she will resort to whatever she wants to regardless of roles and parameters. Moreover, while she openly declared that she will shift themes from law enforcement to health initiatives, she taints her ICAD colleagues’ prudence and judicious circumspection as unreasonable denial.

Joining the fray and inserting into the fracas fuzzy logic and characteristic five-watt intellect and reasoning, Benigno Aquino III declared, “In-appoint mo tapos wala ka palang tiwala e parang magulo ata ‘yun (You appointed her and then it turns out, you don’t trust her. Eh, that’s confusing).”

To clear the cobwebs in Aquino’s mind he should remember how he purposely kept his Interior secretary out of the loop in the Mamasapano misadventure where he trusted a suspended policeman over his own Cabinet alter ego.

Politicos spin the issues surrounding the obvious friction as a question of raw distrust, deliberately ignoring the ugly reality where Robredo maintains her blind allegiance to the political machinery that installed her as vice president over the public and the electorate who suffer her presence.

Her tendency to wallow in the shallows betrays her unreliability as a trusted ally in the multi-arena drug war.

Co-chairing the ICAD would have automatically granted her Cabinet-level rank and empower her as a presidential alter ego. Rank and role are however two different things. One places her on a specific rung in the hierarchy. Role transforms her into the President’s “other self.” To be a presidential “other self,” she must prove herself.

Unfortunately she failed the test since demanding for more money absent a game plan, consorting with enemies rather building consensus and operational efficiency, and finally, trashing established and approved protocols, and then backtracking.

It is difficult to rely on a directionless flake. The absence of trust ranges from distrust to doubt. Spinning the term on its head we quickly come to the term “betrayal.” Betrayal ranges from let downs, degrading to double-dealing and eventually to treachery.

It is not so much that she is distrusted as it is that she has betrayed the trust vested upon her.