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Monday, May 16, 2005
Editorials: Political auction of ‘Cabinet’ posts
KEEN observers of the national government have noted that in the past couple of weeks there have occurred a number of changes in the President’s official family. The latest among these is the replacement of health secretary Manuel Dayrit with someone from Pangasinan, reportedly scion of a political family whose father had once been also health secretary during the regime of presidential father, the late president Diosdado Macapagal.
There was an almost instantaneous negative reaction to such move of President Arroyo as a politically motivated one. The newly appointed health secretary is the incumbent chief of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth), Dr. Francisco Duque III. He takes over the position on June 1. He was the one who initiated the strategic political program of extending Philhealth to indigent families. He has, however, quite reassuring credentials.
But the point at issue, though, is not just the matter of qualifications but the presidential motive behind the decision to appoint. In many instances in the past, presidents have used Cabinet positions as a resource for rewarding friends and kin who have politically helped him or her ascend to the presidency. Which is the reason why career executive service officers traditionally man Cabinet offices to backstop political appointees.
The rationale here is the assurance that the Cabinet agency would continue to function and to serve the public even if the appointed head of office is more of a political leader than a management expert. Indeed, in the final analysis, while the practice on the whole may be counter-productive, it does not really diminish the capability of the particular public office from extending the agency’s services to the citizenry.
What normally happens is that the high positions in the national government, as in an auction, often goes to whoever the President thinks is the highest political bidder.
Missing the point on media deaths
WHEN Secretary of Interior Angelo Reyes said the media should not make a cause celebre of the series of murders of Filipino journalists, since the deaths of soldiers and policemen in the performance of their duties merely become statistics, he grossly missed the point. Soldiers and police are aware from the very moment they accepted their job that the occupation calls for their lives to be placed on the line all the time.
Not so the media practitioners. The journalists are people who choose to serve the society as purveyors of information that the citizenry ought to know, particularly in the way they are being governed. In a democracy like ours, the citizenry should know the manner and means in which public officials perform their duties and responsibilities. Besides, note that the roles of the journalists and the soldiers and police immensely differ.
The latter are public servants, while the former are not. But then again, that is beside the point really. In a civilized society, human life is of primordial value. Regardless of who “owns” the life that was suddenly, mercilessly, extinguished, it is the responsibility of law enforcement authorities to go after the perpetrators with haste, and without bias. |
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