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So what
else is new?
Reports
have it that Black and White Movement coconvenor Leah
Navarro has raised hell over recent presidential
appointments, notably those of former senator Vicente
“Tito” Sotto III as chairman of the Cabinet- level
Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) and former presidential
chief of staff Mike Defensor as head of Task Force Naia
3 on what can only be considered as highly egregious
grounds.
The
self-styled crusader for “good governance” pointed out
that Sotto and Defensor should not have been appointed
at all since “…they were both rejected by the electorate
in the last senatorial elections.”
What?
Since when did losing in an election become the “end all
and be all” of appointment in government? Where has
Navarro been all these years?
Losing
in an election may be traumatic for some people, but it
can and should never be the main, if not the sole,
criteria for appointment even to the most sensitive
government jobs. Imagine the kind of loss which America
and even the world would have experienced in more ways
than one had the appointing powers been as prejudiced
and narrow-minded as Navarro is in making their choices.
Had
Navarro’s kind of mindset prevailed, America would have
missed the services of an Adlai Stevenson, Illinois
senator and losing Democratic presidential bet, who
turned out to be one of the most articulate, most
trustworthy and well-loved US envoys at the United
Nations in New York.
The same
may be said of then-US envoy to India, Patrick Moynihan,
who was also rejected in a previous bid for office but
who, on his rebound, later turned out to be one of the
most compassionate, prodigious and hard-working US
senators.
For that
matter, we would not have witnessed the flowering of the
statesmanship of former US President Jimmy Carter, who
lost in his bid for reelection to then-California
governor Ronald Reagan, who, on several occasions later,
named him as special envoy to help open up talks with
warring factions in some war- torn countries in the
Middle East.
We can
go on and on, naming a number of other “electoral
rejects” such as US Presidents Abraham Lincoln and
Richard Nixon, to name just the more prominent ones,
whose rejections, if we may call them such, turned out
to be so humbling but which they later overcame and
turned into blessings, not only for themselves but for
the country and people they loved.
Lincoln became
the uniting Emancipation President, and Nixon the Cold
War warrior who opened up the West’s bridges to China
and, in time, the entire Iron Curtain.
Closer
to home one, remembers “Mr. UN” himself, Gen. Carlos P.
Romulo, well loved Foreign Affairs secretary and UP
president who had to lick the wounds of his beating in
electoral contests, including a failed presidential run.
Former
Senate President and Chief Justice Marcelo Fernan had
his own licking to do before he was appointed to the
High Tribunal and became one of its better-remembered
heads.
Too, if
Navarro has not been told, incumbent Isabela Gov. Grace
Padaca, a Black and White Movement icon of sorts, had to
spend three years as a middle-level officer of the
Commission on Audit after her defeat in a hotly
contested congressional run, and from there nurtured her
bid for the province’s top post where she is now on her
second term.
Of
course, all of them were qualified for the posts they
were appointed to, and their defeat never got in the way
of their appointments.
Which is
why we ask Navarro to take pause. She may have nothing
but disdain for this administration and for the likes of
Sotto and Defensor. But to complain and urge their
nonappointment to jobs which they are definitely
qualified to occupy and where they can very well make a
difference is to be petty and shortsighted. Her
disgusting bias is unavailing.
She
should know that Sotto was the author of the law
creating the DDB and has been involved in the fight
against illegal drugs since 1987, when he was first
elected as Quezon City vice mayor. He has mastered the
subject, so to speak, and can very well put that
experience to good use, especially at this time when the
drug menace threatens to envelop more communities across
the land.
On the
other hand, Defensor is no stranger to successful
trouble-shooting, and this is precisely what is needed
in his new job. I emphasize “job” because that is what
heading this Task Force Naia 3 is all about.
This is
not a new Cabinet-level post, it does not carry perks
and powers which the Navarro types pretend to abhor and,
yes, does not even boast of a salary worth the trouble
of having to push people, institutions, public and
private, local and overseas, and, of course, interests
both seen and unseen, to come around and finally put an
end to the impasse to open up this long-overdue
facility.
It takes
guts, a lot of patience, clear understanding of the
issues at hand and human-relations skills to pull this
kind of work to a successful close. This is precisely
the kind of almost intractable job on which Defensor’s
public career has been founded, if Navarro and her ilk
care to even look at.
People
said Defensor would not be able to turn the HUDCC
around. He did. They cast aspersions on his ability to
even manage the competing forces at the Environment
Department and its various constituencies. He did.
Then,
they said he would be lost in the Malacañang snake pit.
He did not. He survived and earned President Arroyo’s
trust and confidence even more. He did lose in his
senatorial bid, but should that be taken against him? Of
course not.
If he
can get to open up Naia 3 in full and on time to serve
the ever-growing traffic in goods and people, which he
promised to do, then by all means, he should be allowed
to do so and even wished well, ’di ba?
. . .
same with Neri at SSS
Which is
what we also urge all those who are now ganging up on
former CHED chairman Romy Neri on his appointment as
Social Security System (SSS) president and CEO.
We
should give the guy the chance to prove his worth as the
guardian of the workers’ fund and as a forward-looking
advocate of their welfare.
We may
have our own misgivings with his previous demeanor,
especially in the case of the canceled NBN/ZTE deal, but
why condemn him to oblivion forever just because he did
not yield to the harangues and passions of the crowd?
Let him deal with that matter in time and, knowing him,
I am sure he will.
But in
the meantime, let the misguided passions wind down and
let Neri articulate his own plan on how best he can earn
the trust and confidence of his principals—in this case,
the private workers, the pensioners, their families and,
of course, their partners, i.e., employers and even the
government—to provide the cushion and benefits they
deserve now and in their old age.
If Neri
can provide the leadership to balance the various
interests impacting on the fate of the SSS and, more
important, to expand and grow the fund to cushion it
from volatile market swings and the increasing economic
gloom, then he shall have earned his keep whether the
Navarros of this world like it or not. |
