‘Arroyo
Has The Best Of FVR Men’ "What's
wrong with us?" This,
in a nutshell, was the reaction of some of President Arroyo's appointees
who are identified with either Executive Secretary Renato de Villa or
former president Fidel Ramos. Appointing them, they said, is testament to
the good job they did during Ramos' time. “It
is not proper to (castigate) Cabinet members according to who they worked
with in the past. She knows the people she appointed. She has worked with
them and knows their capabilities,” said Paul Dominguez, the
presidential assistant for regional development. “She’s made a choice
and I think it’s a strong and capable Cabinet,” he added. Dominguez
explained that the assumption to office of Arroyo was “abnormal.”
Usually, he said, “when you assume power by election, you normally have
between 30 and 45 days in which the team is carefully crafted and you have
an opportunity to float names. Under the present circumstances, it would
be more fair for the public to really assess the team based on its
performance.” He
said there was a great need to quickly appoint secretaries for the
interior, justice, finance, and defense departments, to name a few. Besides,
he said, “I have not seen any real survey that indicate any great
anxiety about the Cabinet. A lot of the comment is on specific people. You
measure whether the public is happy about the Cabinet in large surveys.” Moreover,
Dominguez said, the appointments would be under “continuous review”
and that the Congress will have the opportunity to determine whether the
appointments are acceptable. Dominguez
belongs to the powerful and rich Dominguez clan in Mindanao. His brother,
Carlos, was Ramos’ agriculture secretary. Dominguez’s family is into
agribusiness and property development. They own or run, among others, the
Marco Polo, Mindanao’s largest hotel. He is married to an Alcantara,
another rich and powerful clan in Mindanao with vast property and
landholdings, among them the Alsons plywood company which maintains tree
plantations in Mindanao. These plantations have allegedly
encroached into the ancestral land of indigenous communities. Her
Own Mind For
his part, Jesus Dureza, the presidential assistant for Southern Mindanao
and concurrent director of the Mindanao Economic Development Council, told
Bulatlat.com that the criticism against the Ramos or de Villa
appointees “is not valid.” “She
has her own mind and I think she did look around. She was pressed for time
and I don’t think she could afford to gamble in inexperienced people.
She wanted to hit the ground running and maybe she was just looking for
people who have the experience,” he said. “What's
negative about being identified with Ramos?” Dureza, the former
president’s spokesman, said. “Everything about Ramos is positive, but
maybe I’m just biased. But people have very short memory on the Ramos
presidency. They just have to remember how Ramos really brought the
Philippines up front. I'm proud to be in the Ramos team, and I’d like to
really do more under the Arroyo team. Frankly, she’s got the best of FVR
on her team,” he said. Dureza
pleaded to Arroyo’s critics to give her and the Cabinet a break.
“We’d like to do something and I hope they reserve their criticisms
for later. Give her a little time.” President
Arroyo, in various interviews, has said that she picked her Cabinet
members for their “integrity, honesty and competence.” This
was echoed by Solita Monsod, the senatorial candidate who served as
Economic Planning chief during the time of Aquino. "It's a totally
competent team. There is no question about their integrity," she
said. Search
Committee Bill
Luz, the executive director of the Makati Business Club that initially
complained about the appointments, said that they were not actually
critical of the appointees. “Our concern was the selection process. We
had been told that there's a search committee. That's all we wanted to
verify.” This
process, he said, primarily involves vetting the names of the appointees.
“The process is important. All we wanted was transparency,” Luz said. Although
the search committee was activated, only about seven of the hundred or so
it shortlisted have been appointed. Luz,
meanwhile, thinks that the criticism against Ramos and de Villa was
immaterial. “It doesn’t matter where they came from. Competence and
honesty are the hallmarks that we look for,” he said. Asked
about the view that Arroyo was not in control of the appointments, Luz
replied: “No doubt Mrs. Arroyo was in control. The question has never
been about control but about process.” --
Carlos H. Conde
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