Over the weekend, freshly appointed press secretary at the White House Katie Zacharia was sacked after her “fake attorney” and “China toilet” scandals. The newly appointed press secretary was fired just after five days in office. Before he became the president of the United States, mega-business executive Donald Trump had popularized in his own TV show the line: “You’re fired.”
Mr. Trump produced and hosted the reality television and business competition show called The Apprentice on NBC network from 2004 to 2015. He played himself as the flamboyant but ruthless chief executive officer of his family-owned real estate and holding conglomerate headquartered at the Trump Tower in New York City. Trump fires the losing “Apprentice” applicant that capped the show’s end.
It was only last Oct. 9 when Trump first announced on social media that Zacharia would be his new press secretary. Her short-lived stint began at the White House on Oct. 12. She replaced former secretary Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down from the White House press podium in August this year.
The next day, Zacharia conducted her first ever – that later out to be her last – press conference at the White House. It took about 15 minutes, only replying to three ques-tions. In Zacharia’s first encounter with the reporters, she was asked if she passed the Bar exam. She replied: “When I moved to China.” She quickly clarified that she misheard the question as asking her: “Where were you after law school?” Zacharia took the California Bar exam in 2011 but did not pass.
“I thought she (Zacaria) was very good,” Trump later told White House reporters. The tenure of 41-year-old Zacharia was the shortest, even compared with former White House communications director Anthony Saramucci who served for 11 days during the first term of President Trump in 2017.
Zacharia’s exit came after our own President, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) booted out Presidential Communications Office (PCO) “acting” secretary Dave Gomez. The PCO secretary is the counterpart of the White House press secretary after the erstwhile Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) was revamped in July 2010. The late president Benigno Simeon “PNoy” Aquino III issued Executive Order No. 4 that took out the traditional role of the press secretary. PNoy restructured all the media-related agencies of the OPS but kept them all under the PCO.
PNoy’s late mother, former president Corazon “Cory” Aquino, much earlier maintained the OPS set-up she inherited from PBBM’s namesake father, the late president Marcos Sr. From the time she assumed office after the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, Mrs. Aquino had six press secretaries until her term ended on June 30, 1992.
We had the first woman press secretary Alice C. Villadolid from April 28 to Sept. 3, 1986. She was teamed up with award-winning director Maria Montelibano as the head of Radio-TV Malacañang (RTVM). At a forum two weeks ago hosted by the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation held at the De La Salle University, Manila, Montelibano fondly recalled how they coped with the challenges using the much-vaunted Marcos press machinery during the post-Edsa media establishments.
“We found it easy to serve the people. Why? Because we did not lie. We did not malign other people. We did not dis-inform the people,” Montelibano stressed.
It was former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who had the most number of press secretaries. She had a total of 11 press secretaries in her nine years in office.
Gomez supposedly resigned after the Commission on Appointments by-passed his nomination before they adjourned for recess. It was actually a technical by-pass of the CA due to lack of time to act on the nomination of Gomez. PBBM appointed Gomez in July last year. But it was only in August this year when Malacañang finally submitted his ad interim appointment to the CA.
Gomez could actually still be re-appointed. But Malacañang was in no mood to do so. Gomez ultimately got hit for the continuing decline in public opinion surveys on presi-dential approval and trust rating of PBBM.
PBBM immediately named ex-PTV-4 general manager Lino Cayetano as the new PCO secretary. The government-owned PTV-4 is one of the attached media agencies under the PCO. Cayetano became the sixth PCO secretary in the past four years of the PBBM term.
Most if not all who served as press secretaries were former working journalists. Several have survived and came out alive from the so-called “snake pit” at Malacañang Palace. The “snakes” are the back-stabbing and intrigues among officials at the Office of the President.
Working then as a journalist while studying law and later passing the Bar exams, former press secretary Ignacio “Toting” Bunye twice headed the OPS. Bunye served for a to-tal of five years during Mrs. Arroyo’s term. Bunye once told us Malacañang Palace reporters that a press secretary normally has a “shelf life of three years” to remain effective in office.
Veteran journalist and currently BizNewsAsia magazine publisher, Antonio “Tony” Lopez, could not agree more. Also a columnist at The STAR, Lopez claimed he turned down twice separate offers to become a press secretary. Lopez won’t mention who tried but failed to recruit him. He loves to cite though the popular fairytale character Pinoc-chio on why he refused to become a press secretary.
As the fairytale goes, an elderly, lonely woodcarver named Geppetto crafted a wooden puppet and named him Pinocchio. Geppetto wished for Pinocchio to become a real boy. A fairy granted his wish but once Pinocchio becomes a real boy, he must prove himself to be brave, truthful and unselfish.
The almost press secretary wisecracked, “Or else I might become like Pinocchio whose nose grows longer each time I tell a lie.”
Pinocchio is a fairytale about good and evil. A press secretary – like other Cabinet officials – is the alter ego of the President. So who would tell the truth and who has to spew the lies?
“Or else I might become like Pinocchio whose nose grows longer each time he tells a lie,” the almost press secretary wisecracked.