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HERE is the reason why there are more asecs (assistant secretaries)
and usecs (undersecretaries) than janitors in Mrs. Arroyo’s
government. Political debts = more nincompoops/ crooks/ charlatans
that need government appointments.
But to her credit, she did not start the whole
thing, the mass appointment of government underlings with fancy
titles. Cory Aquino did, though it was not really the fault of the
revered former president.
After she was swept to power in 1986, Cory
Aquino was faced with the tough problem of what to do with the more
than 30 opposition MPs who stood up to Marcos, campaigned for her,
almost gave up their lives for her in the snap election.
A few were Cabinet materials. Nene Pimentel, the
late Monching Mitra, Nani Perez, Bert Romulo, Louie Villafuerte,
etc. Some were not. But she cannot be an ingrata and ignore these
former MPs who were rendered jobless by her presidency. So she did
what was possible: give these dislocated MPs subcabinet positions.
Or, bureau directorships. And choice
appointments in government boards. The luckier ones got posts in the
sequestered corporations.
So began the mass padding of subcabinet posts in
the government. And the bloating of the bureaucracy. Because there
were no plantilla positions, the former MPs, now appointed “deputy
ministers,” were given high-sounding but useless titles.
So, if the maximum number of subcabinet posts
under Marcos was four (two deputy ministers and two assistant
ministers), it was six or more under Cory Aquino’s revolutionary
government.
(Full disclosure. During the time Oca Orbos was
executive secretary, I was a technical assistant with the rank of
assistant secretary. We did not stay long though. We were idealists
in a context that needed gofers, infighters and brawlers.)
All the presidents that succeeded Cory Aquino
did not slow down on appointments. All vowed to “trim down the
bureaucracy.” But all of them ended up adding slabs of useless
(and often corrupt) fat into the bureaucracy.
Mr. Ramos not only continued with that practice.
He created several ad hoc bodies and committees. Scores of retired
police and military officers were named to government posts. Mr.
Ramos saw to it that there were retired colonels and generals
everywhere.
The “lean and mean” bureaucracy promised by
Mr. Ramos ended up fatter and militarized.
Under Mr. Estrada’s term, nothing changed. In
fact, this was the first presidency that made a fuss over who gets
board seats in the various government-owned and controlled
corporations and the private corporations with government
representation (Petron, San Miguel, PAL) etc.
From time immemorial, these were hush-hush
affairs. Under Mr. Estrada, appointments to these boards gained a
certain cachet (and notoriety). Under Mr. Estrada, too, there were
undersecretaries and assistant secretaries for “special
concerns” and “external concerns.”
These were useless appointments. But they have
to be made to accommodate cronies of that administration.
The problem is worse now. And magnified a
thousand times because Mrs. Arroyo has to repay political debts that
piled up after EDSA 2, the 2004 election and the need to have
politicians around her to prop up her challenged government.
Now, Cabinet posts come cheaper by the dozen.
Gofers overseeing the affairs of regions come with the title of
“secretaries.”
Bureaucrats minding the affairs of a very
limited concern are also vested that glorious title.
The secretaries of the line departments
(finance, transport, agriculture etc) do not even personally know
many of the useless people who hold Cabinet-rank titles. And they
are privately complaining that these tsipipays have demeaned the
formerly-honorable title of Cabinet minister.
It has been years since I last saw Rep. Tony
Cuenco of Cebu City, one of the 30 or so opposition MPs in the
defunct Batasan. His story is worth recalling.
Because Tony Cuenco had nowhere to go and Cory
Aquino wanted him to get a Cabinet post, he was given the title,
“Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs.” You know what? He
was a Cabinet member with one deputy minister, Manny Festin
Martinez, the journalist, and nothing else. Tony Cuenco had to
borrow a secretary from somewhere.
It was one for “Believe it or Not” but it is
also a true story on the absurdity of the Philippine bureaucracy.
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