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I AM taking back what I wrote earlier about boxer
Manny Pacquiao. That he was a so-so boxer who should not get
national adulation. I was dead wrong.
The background of this mea culpa
was the investigative piece that made a scrutiny of the members of
Mrs. Arroyo’s cabinet. What struck me most was the report that
former Gen. Angelo Reyes has had four cabinet positions since EDSA
Dos made Mrs. Arroyo president.
Mr. Reyes had been secretary of
three critical departments: defense, local government and
environment and natural resources. He is now secretary of a line
agency as vital—energy.
Mr. Reyes has had four cabinet
assignments without displaying extraordinary talent, impossible
creativity, true grit and intensity of purpose. There is not even a
slightest hint that he possesses the attributes that should cloak an
indispensable member of the cabinet. He is, as far as the public
knows, way, way off the league of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, who was
moved from post to post during the Marcos government.
The public record of Mr.
Reyes’s post-military work at four important line departments has
yet to be crowned by a major, sterling accomplishment. There is no
public record that he is the hardest-worker in the cabinet either,
offsetting his ordinariness with an extraordinary work ethic.
At best, he plods from one job to
another, handed to him on a silver platter by an obviously grateful
President Arroyo. On a scale of 1 to 10, his performance rating
would have been 5. Or 6 at the most. The kindest thing one can say
about his performance is that he is average.
Yet, based on the trust and
confidence vested on him by the president, he could have been The
Talented Mr. Reyes.
In contrast, Mr. Pacquiao puts
his limbs and his life on the line whenever and wherever he fights.
He gets bloodied. Every round, he risks getting hit by a
life-threatening punch. He trains hard before every fight. Every
cent he earns, he earns it the hard way.
Mr. Pacquiao has moved through
three boxing divisions through grit, guts and occasional guile. The
wages of years on the ring may come back and haunt him one day, with
utmost savagery. But this does not obviously faze him. All his
triumphs are his and his alone. He may be acting like a brat/boor
outside the ring but we can forgive him for that. What do you expect
from somebody who hangs out with politicians?
With the easy, seemingly charmed
life of Mr. Reyes in the government bureaucracy as background, you
cannot help but be impressed by the hardworking and competitive Mr.
Pacquiao.
The bent of Mrs. Arroyo to have a
group of indispensable people around her always rewarded with big
government jobs was picked up from Mr. Marcos. The late Mr. Marcos,
through his long years at the Palace, stuck to a select group or men
and women (mostly men) and he gave members of this group top jobs in
the public sector.
Only, Mr. Marcos imposed a
precondition. They should be men and women of extra-ordinary talent
and competence.
Mr. Enrile, for one, trained
under the brilliant architects and overseers of the Marshall Plan,
the most famous public intervention in contemporary history. More,
he had the scars of life before he moved into the world of the
privileged and the powerful.
Ka Blas Ople, who was labor
minister for 17 years, was a first-rate intellectual with the work
ethic of a stevedore—which he was proudly once.
The succession of the Pampango
lawyers at the justice ministry was never questioned. Who had doubts
about the legal skills of Vicente Abad Santos, Ricardo Puno and
Estelito Mendoza?
Give Bong Tanco a second after a
basketball game and he would dash it out for you: prices of Chicago
grains and meat futures, footnotes of FAO documents, impact of
famine in the sub-Sahara on global food supply, tungro infestation
in Central Luzon rice fields, average yield from the new sugar
varieties in Negros, the Central Bank updates on agricultural
relending.
More, they were mostly colorful
figures, not just eggheads with bland lives. They devoured books,
kept abreast with the groundbreaking and fresh economic and
political theories. Because they cannot raise an argument with Mr.
Marcos, they argued among themselves with vigor.
One more interesting thing:
several of the second-rate gofers of these colorful and brilliant
Marcos men ended up serving the Arroyo cabinet.
mvrong@yahoo.com
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