Why Duterte likes appointing military and police generals

The President's perennial critics, including the so-called human rights advocates, the self-styled progressive party-list politicians and the remnants of the opposition in the senate and in the house, love to denounce President Duterte's propensity to choose military and police officers to head civilian agencies. Last week, Malacañan announced the appointment of retired Army General Ricardo Morales to head the beleaguered PhilHealth. There are now more than twenty of such military and police generals who are on top of important posts in government. The communists and the socialists around are quick to brand such pattern of Presidential appointments as a process of militarization, supposedly on the way to Martial Law all over the country.

I don't buy such baseless audacity. If you know the President, you would readily discern that he wants men and women of action, of discipline and of proven loyalty to the overall leader. He hates public officials who talk too much and deliver too little.

He abhors those who preempt the head of state in making statements that would compromise the national leadership. He does not patience for officials who are always in their ivory towers making reports and delivering high-sounding speeches that mean nothing to the sufferings of the people. He want men and who go out into the fields and be in constant touch with the constituencies.

Men in uniform had always been trained to be men of action, rather than men of words or of speeches. The President wants his officials to be ''wounded and scarred'' in the ''daily battles'' of solving problems, getting things done and delivering results.

President Duterte is never impressed with verbal eloquence that does not have concrete results. He has his own way of knowing what is really happening in the hinterlands, in every nook and cranny of the islands. He has his own networks of informers who keep him updated on what this and that official is doing. President Duterte does not like to read well-written reports with statistics and data that are merely written to impress the boss.

Military and police generals are disciplined people. They follow the chain of command. They do not by-pass their superiors in order to please the media or look good to the people. Military and police generals are trained to keep top secrets and classified information.

They share facts only on a need-to-know basis. They do not tell their wives, girlfriends or both what the President instructed them to do. They keep their vows of omerta. They would rather drink poison than reveal national secrets that may compromise the security of the state, or put the life of the President in grave or imminent danger. Or things that may embarrass the head of state or breach international protocol.

Rather than appointing politicians who are prone to show off or filibuster, the Presidents wants men and women who follow orders of the commander-in-chief, without question nor hesitation. When you are in the executive, you should not argue or debate, you just execute the orders.

And let the head assume command responsibility. If you want arguments, go to the senate or the House. They talk too much because it is not their mandate to implement what comes out of their mouths.