Sounds un-Duterte

Acting as concurrent presidential spokesman and chief presidential legal counsel (CLPC) is nothing new for Salvador Panelo. Even when former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was still President-elect after his overwhelming victory in the May 2016 presidential elections, Panelo was already performing the twin posts. While the President-elect was still forming his own Cabinet team, the stylist-fashionista Panelo wore already the two hats with aplomb. 

However, Panelo is not the first Palace official to ever hold such dual posts of a CLPC and presidential spokesman. Panelo is the third one.

It was Teodoro “Teddyboy” Locsin who is the first-ever presidential spokesman cum CLPC during the term of the late president Corazon Aquino. Incidentally, Locsin is now the newly appointed Foreign Affairs Secretary of President Duterte.

There were also three women who once served as presidential spokesperson in our country. For a brief while, Mrs. Aquino named Alice Villadolid-Reyes as the first-ever woman presidential spokesperson. Ex-president Fidel Ramos had the late Annabelle Abaya. Abigail Valte was the third one but only served as deputy during the term of P-Noy.

Locsin was first minister of information during the first few weeks after the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. During those days, the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) was still being set up to replace the martial law information machinery.

When the OPS was finally operational, Mrs. Aquino named the late Teodoro “Teddyman” Benigno to head it. Benigno was then the Manila Bureau chief, the first Filipino to break into the top post of the international wire news Agence France Presse. So we have “Teddyman” as Press Secretary and “Teddyboy” as the presidential spokesman cum CPLC.

The role of a presidential spokesman is different from the Press Secretary.  

Being a veteran newsman himself, Teddyman served as our “close-in” reporter during official events of Mrs. Aquino that were closed to media coverage. Teddyboy, on the other hand, issued press statements in behalf of Mrs. Aquino or answers media interviews for the press-shy President.

During the last few months of Mrs. Aquino’s administration, it was Adolfo Azcuna who performed the dual posts. Now a retired Supreme Court associate justice, Azcuna is currently the chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy. And like Locsin, Azcuna actually was also a press secretary in concurrent capacity as CLPC for a brief while.

We were then among the so-called “brat pack” reporters who covered Malacañang Palace. In my case, I covered three more presidents at Malacañang after Mrs. Aquino, and have known many spokespersons and press secretaries who served each of these past four presidents. Perhaps, this institutional knowledge gave me enough experience and wisdom to know how a presidential spokesperson could last as a credible alter ego for and in behalf of the President. 

Each Cabinet official, for that matter, is the alter ego of the President to speak for and in behalf of the Chief Executive on matters under their respective Departments’ jurisdictions and areas of concern. 

However, in that respect, the role of the presidential spokesperson is entirely unique in itself because he or she can speak for and in behalf of the Chief Executive on matters related to a particular Department. That is if he or she gets clearance first from the President no less on his or her thinking and opinion over a specific policy or program of a Department or agency of government.  

Thus, a favorite line among presidential spokespersons whenever a question or questions are asked during a media briefing or press conference in and out of the Palace is, “I will get back to you.” This is the so-called safe answer to queries beyond the competence and jurisdiction of the presidential spokesperson.

This early, Panelo is again committing the same mistakes that former presidential spokesman Harry Roque did that prematurely and abruptly cut his tenure as Duterte Cabinet official. Panelo should be reminded how second-guessing President Duterte got into trouble his immediate predecessor. A spokesman must have full and complete access, not just trust and confidence of the President to do his or her job.

A cardinal rule for any official spokesperson, for that matter, is never to assume he or she can second-guess his or her principal.

I heard an interview on Panelo who cited his being a lawyer as an asset to his concurrent post as a presidential spokesman. Although a common denominator of past presidential spokespersons at the Palace is being a lawyer, I assure you being one is not an asset but a burden to a great extent. 

Lawyers have been trained to lie through their teeth in defense of their clients. So explanations delivered by a lawyer-presidential spokesperson come off as alibi instead of being accepted as truth and factual. Pardon the skepticisms but that is the public perception on lawyers when they hem and haw as presidential spokesperson.

Former Press Secretary cum presidential spokesman Ignacio “Toting” Bunye, himself a lawyer too, once told us the shelf life of the Press Secretary and the presidential spokesperson are both very short in terms of being credible. Bunye, who was also once a newsman, believes  a good Press Secretary or presidential spokesperson remains effective for a maximum of three years.

A Press Secretary who serves longer than three years, he noted, could suffer from the wear-and-tear. One’s health will be the first to give in to the pressures of being in the firing line and at the hot seat before reporters and media that he or she has to deal with 24/7 of his or her office. 

To put it bluntly, the Press Secretary might eventually look like a Pinocchio. The fabled nose of the wooden toy Pinocchio grows long every time he tells a lie. 

Now nearing his third year in office, President Duterte decided to let Roque out. While still looking for another presidential spokesman, media will have to make do with Panelo who sounds un-Duterte.