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Friday, January 10, 2003
Roperos: Celebrating mediocrity
By GODOFREDO M. ROPEROS
WHAT is presently happening in Malacañang is something that can only be explained as a kind of celebration. The way top officials appear to be moved from one position to another is like playing a table game, like chess or the Filipino checkers called dama. But it seems a very poor way of playing the game, since analysis of situation and assessment of problems seems ignored or set aside. It is thus a celebration of mediocrity, where persons are moved without regard for qualifications, merit, capability, and track record.
It is surprising why the President took the recent steps toward a Cabinet reorganization without appearing to have undertaken a good, clean job at recruitment. What she has done so far was stick by the people she picked up earlier before she decided not to run in 2004, people whom she must have recruited with politics seriously a primordial factor in the choice. The way things look instead is that she has really not given up the thought of being a candidate in 2004, and that she is still trying to strengthen her political fence.
Otherwise, at this stage, she should really be getting top caliber people in her Cabinet, the ones who are devoted to their country besides being experts in their respective fields. I am sure there are many she can pick and choose from in the academe. It is unthinkable that we have run out of warm bodies with true quality and dedication. Actually, the President could comb our universities and colleges in the country to ferret out the best in the academe—people who are economically stable and apolitical.
Somebody commented that what President Arroyo has been doing in the past few days was play musical chair with some of the people in her Cabinet. Perhaps, to show us that she was really starting to do something about her administration now that she has said she would not run anymore for the presidency. But what she has done is just not enough to impress the public. She has projected an image instead of taking lightly the personal lives of the people she “uprooted” from stable positions, only to be dropped afterwards.
The way the President is shuffling her Cabinet officials around does seem to me as on a chessboard, in the sense that the men she has enticed to work for her administration did uproot themselves from their respective private undertakings. But suddenly, after just a few months in public office, they are confronted with the reality their public lives have become so fragile before the searching eyes of the people, and that at any moment, pressure from the public could push them off their positions, and into the streets.
Take the case of the Office of the Press Secretary. In the period of barely two years, how many persons have occupied the position? How many of the support staff have come and gone within the Palace’s inner sanctum? I know first hand how the culture of intrigue in that place can send a person of weaker emotional stamina down on his her knees in no time at all. Which is why, to uproot someone from a world of peace and quiet, and transport him to a world of turbulence and emotional insecurity is, I think, cruel and unjust.
“You know, the reason why that is happening in the Palace,” surmised a friend in my favorite uptown mall coffee shop, “is largely due to slipshod and faulty recruitment. I feel the Presidents aides are feeding her with mediocre minds, you know, persons who are friends of friends of someone close to the President. You know, it always happens. Someone wanting to prove his or her ‘pull’ on Ms. Arroyo, would strive hard to have her or his recommendee appointed, whether qualified or not. The secret is to have one with political influence make the recommendation, and the ‘follow-up.”
When finally the new appointee settles down to work in the new office, he realizes too late that he or she does not know how to run it, much less manage its program. That is when the office personnel begins to get demoralized, start lobbying for a replacement. The few who are master at intrigues in the office move in to gain mileage in the worsening situation. The incompetent office head, at the instance of his new “office aides” begin axing those he or she feels are against him. And the trouble worsens.
Indeed, by giving premium to mediocrity, the President appears to have fallen into a quicksand. And the more she moves, the deeper she sinks. Perhaps, it’s time she stops listening to the busybodies in her office, stop heeding those ideas whispered in her ears. And instead start moving by her instincts. By what she believes is good for the country. Fact is, President Arroyo might still have time to fulfill her hopes for a better, stronger, and more prosperous Philippines if she truly wants to and means what she says. |
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