Delicadeza or another Hyatt 10?

There is more to Secretary Alberto Romulo’s statement when he went public to say he will support the presidential bid of the opposition’s Senator Noynoy Aquino but he will stay in President GMA’s cabinet. That is strange and smacks of defiance. In my book, it is a sorry example of lack of delicadeza.

In the past when delicadeza mattered in politics as well as in ordinary lives, Romulo’s position would have been unacceptable, indeed even shocking. Delicadeza as a rule for behavior is voluntary. It is a self-imposed code by men and women who are guided by their own conscience.

Romulo’s behavior cannot be justified because he is a personal friend of the Aquinos. Neither is it justified because President GMA and her term of government are ending in 2010.

The foreign secretary is part of that government and should be defending the president instead of glorifying the opposition candidate just because he is the son of democracy icon Cory Aquino.

Almost at the end of her term the vilification campaign against President GMA or her work goes relentlessly under the guise of politics as usual.

She cannot do anything right and yet this country has to be governed in the short but crucial times.

I have said many times in this column that neither President GMA nor her government are beyond criticism and that attacks against her or her government is part of the territory. We are a democracy. But all this must be pursued against the background of respect for the Presidency as a symbol of the country’s sovereignty. We may forgive foreigners who don’t care about the country’s symbols, but Filipinos? They ought to know better.

It would be wrong to praise the President’s foreign secretary for doing what he did and then declaring it to media. As a member of the cabinet and one whose work is in diplomacy, one would have expected more circumspect behavior. To revel in cheering from the opposition and catcalls against the government, in my book, is bad behavior for a premier cabinet member. Moreover it is unworthy of his calling as the diplomats’ diplomat.

“Delicadeza” is a code of honor and I would have expected the Secretary of Foreign Affairs to know and practice it. He is not blamed because he is a good friend of the Aquinos and therefore in the 2010 presidential contest he will be with Noynoy. But something is wrong when he announces his preference after the President’s party had just announced the selection of Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro and he himself was traveling with the President.

 But as a member of the cabinet and holding one of the most sensitive posts in government, he should have resigned before he made the issue public or if he did not intend to resign that he should have kept his preference in private. As another columnist has said, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

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Where does this unwritten code come from? The books say delicadeza is a Spanish word whose literal meaning in English is daintiness. But Filipinos have expanded this meaning to something more profound and became an encompassing code of behavior. In this wider sense it means “being refined or delicate in tastes or manners.”

This wide definition in turn applies to a sense of propriety or how to behave rightly in all circumstances. We have transformed a legacy of the Spanish culture into standards of behavior.

A Filipino holding a position of trust, power or responsibility should be aware of this “sense of propriety”. That is why it applies to the Romulo breach. It does not mean that it does not apply to other high officials including the President. Delicadeza applies to everyone. Romulo should have known better in deference to the position he holds as secretary of foreign affairs in the Arroyo cabinet.

If he were at all concerned with delicadeza or the sense of propriety as a member of the Arroyo cabinet but wanted to make public his choice for the opposition candidate, then he should have gracefully given up his position and people would understand. This is not the first time that a public official has had to resign out of delicadeza.

Others facing the same dilemma have done so. Some would even refuse positions that are potential sources of conflicts of interest.

Malacañang has made its position clear that those in the Cabinet and other sensitive offices who cannot work with the Chief Executive’s decisions because of contrary personal friendships and interests should resign. They should not play double games to the detriment of teamwork so essential in governance.

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I am also disturbed that not only did he not resign as would have been proper he also said with indelicacy that he would stay on in his post. That puts the onus on the President to fire him. But that would create yet another dilemma for her, with the baying wolves of the opposition raring to pounce as soon as she does that.

That is why delicadeza demands that Romulo should resign and not taunt the President to fire him.

The only conclusion I can draw from this unhappy event is that Secretary Romulo has allowed himself to be used by pedigreed Liberals (as distinguished from the Liberal askals who constitute the majority) to generate early political capital for Noynoy’s candidacy.

It reminds me of the Hyatt 10’s failed attempt to overthrow the government when several members of her cabinet withdrew support from President GMA and met in Hongkong with Vice-President Noli de Castro to persuade him to take over as President. It did not work.

The dirty tricks department of the Drilon-led Liberal Party is on the warpath with sectors of media helping to generate a bandwagon for Noynoy. This is not helping Filipinos understand that more is demanded of them when they select their leaders than blind adulation or emotional frenzy. It would be far more helpful if Noynoy, as do other candidates, laid out a program of government on how to lift up the lives of the millions of the country’s poor. And then we will be able to make an intelligent or at a least a well-considered choice.

I am afraid Romulo’s ill conceived statement of support for Noynoy because he is a friend of the Aquinos is disappointing from a man who is said to have a bright head on his shoulders.