The President’s words alone, stated viz: “We’re in a flux,” best capture what every Filipino feels or thinks to be a bureaucratic void in FM Jr.’s brand of governance.
Through half of Marcos’ term, his appointive, more so than elective, bureaucrats transformed the bureaucracy into little centers of power. Unsuspectingly enough, the House of Representatives, through the Speaker, transformed itself into a strong powerhouse that blurred the line as to who was running the affairs of state.
What people might have just seen midway through his term is a government in a state of disarray. The elements of good governance failed to meet the needs of society as exacerbated in the worse use of resources prior to the midterm election. Dole-outs or “ayuda” as a trick in the playbook did not translate to votes reminiscent of the “superstition in the pigeon” in the “Skinner box” (i.e., operant conditioning) theory.
Meant to sweep the administration’s entire 12-man slate into the Senate with “grease money,” the “superstition” was a dismal failure. The low votes Alyansa received set the fuse for the President to call for the courtesy resignation of all Cabinet secretaries, heads of agencies of Cabinet rank, presidential advisers and assistants, as if equivocating that the people have spoken and therefore government has got to act accordingly.
Per news releases, the President said: “It’s time to realign government with the people’s expectations. This is not business as usual. The people have spoken and they expect results — not politics, not excuses. We hear them and we will act.”
This was followed by a press conference of Undersecretary Claire Castro trying to explain if not befuddle FM Jr.’s order.
Per the press officer, it’s to give the President “elbow room to evaluate the performance of each department because the call is about performance, alignment, urgency. How well can FM Jr. and his consult evaluate who will continue to serve in line with his administration’s “recalibrated priorities” when cynics and detractors tend to identify the problem as the President himself?
In public policy parlance, the government is “too big to fail.” Therefore, setting a mass resignation in motion when the government machinery has many moving parts makes it entirely illogical to effect a wholesale transition. How indeed can this new heuristic purporting to bring about “stability, continuity, and meritocracy” be the way moving forward”?
Off the bat, the immediate retention of Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, Trade Secretary Maria Christina Roque, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, Economic Planning and Development Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, Investment and Economic Affairs Secretary Frederick Go all appear to have come about a day after the Makati Business Club sent feelers to retain the economic team.
If a consequent retention alone does not seriously betray what triggered FM Jr.’s call for Cabinet courtesy resignations, what does?
Meanwhile, FM Jr.’s expressed desire to reconcile with the Dutertes totally ignores the reality that former President Rodrigo Duterte’s “illegal transfer” to The Hague was a fly in the ointment of whatever this grand façade of courtesy resignations aims to achieve. FM Jr.’s saying that he “values peace and cooperation over division, needs allies not enemies” becomes empty sloganeering at best.
Per FPRRD’s counsel Nicholas Kaufman, “To be released from the ICC, there must be a willing and capable state party to receive him.” Perhaps, if FM Jr. can take this as an opportunity to redeem himself, then he better do so now as a mark of good statesmanship.
In fact, FPRRD’s landslide victory mirrors the fact that the midterm voter turnout was what Kaufman referred to as a “protest vote.” So how about causing the return of Tatay Digong to the country so he could assume his constitutional mandate as a local chief executive?
In Plain View’s conversation with Senator-elect Rodante Marcoleta, he was of the belief the mass resignations of the “bureaucratic yoke” does not add up. Pray tell, what is this flak?