Presidential appointments and disappointments

Until now, after seven months in Office, there are no permanent secretaries of Agriculture and Health. These two Cabinet portfolios are critical because of the impending food crisis and the continuing threats of the still-unresolved health pandemic. There were apparent errors in the appointments to some important posts and immediate but quite uneasy rectifications had to be made. Notable examples were the choices of a security adviser and the hullabaloo in the appointments of the armed forces chief of staff.

This president is quite different from his own father who was noted for high-quality appointments and decisiveness in the hiring and firing of his underlings and subalterns. President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. is remembered to have been able to recruit to his official family a globally-respected statesman and high-level diplomat, the one and the only iconic Gen. Carlos P. Romulo, the first Filipino Pulitzer Prize awardee and the only Asian from a commonwealth country who was allowed to sign the UN Charter even before the Philippines gained its independence in 1945. Marcos Sr. also brought into his official family, the grandson of General Emilio Aguinaldo, the still-living Cesar Emilio Aguinaldo Virata. Today, the quality of appointees by this president could not hold a candle to the choices of his father.

Marcos Sr. appointed brilliant technocrats, famous writers, and industry leaders with or without political ambitions, high-level thinkers and academicians and businessmen who loved the country and were willing to serve the people, men like “Dr. OD” or Onofred D. Corpuz, the Renaissance man Blas F. Ople, Gerardo Sicat, Jaime Laya, Vicente Paterno, Claudio Teehankee, and Estelito Mendoza. He appointed a very young Cebuano lawyer, Rene Espina as SSS commissioner and later as Transportation and Communications secretary. Espina was later elected as senator. He was the one who pushed for the construction of the Mandaue-Mactan Bridge. Marcos Sr. had the gift of knowing whom to appoint from among many prospective appointees. This is what is sadly lacking today.

The initial appointment by BBM of his campaign manager, Victor Rodriguez, as executive secretary was a purely political decision. The choice of Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin is a brilliant one. Bersamin is a legal luminary, a Bar topnotcher, a noted professor of Law (we taught in two Law schools together, UE and UST). Bersamin is a hardworking and conscientious administrator. He was a Sandiganbayan associate justice, a Court of Appeals jurist before he was elevated to the highest court. He was appointed chief justice by President Duterte. Bersamin was also named chairman of the GSIS after his retirement from the judiciary. BBM gets extra points for the fact that the chief justice is from Abra and a GI or genuine Ilocano.

BBM's choice of the academician Clarita Reyes Carlos was not right from the very start. She is a professor and has had no extensive experience on national security. Her replacement by the military veteran General Eduardo Año was a good decision which should have been done from the very start. On August 28, 2022, BBM removed General Andres Centeno who was supposed to retire much later under the new retirement law. He named General Bartolome Bacarro to replace Centeno. Then when Bacarro was barely about 90 days in office or merely three months, BBM removed Bacarro again and reinstated Centeno. These rather reckless changes in command allegedly triggered demoralization among the officers and men of the AFP. The president was not properly advised by the Department of Defense and his chief presidential legal adviser.

Marcos Sr. had excellent choices as Armed Forces chief of staff, competent and loyal professionals, men like Generals Manuel T. Yan, Romeo Espino, and Fidel V. Ramos. I do not include Fabian Ver for obvious reasons. But Ver was loyal to Marcos Sr., his cousin, ‘til the end. Marcos Sr. also appointed my uncle and namesake, General Josephus Q. Ramas as Philippine Army chief. Ramas disobeyed Ver and refused to bomb EDSA from the vantage point of Fort Bonifacio at the height of the EDSA revolt.

BBM has a very, very long way to go before he could imbibe the wisdom and experience of his late father in choosing the right people for the right job at the right time. Many wrong appointments end up in huge disappointments. And the people would be the most disadvantaged.