Ali Baba and the 40 generals

The drama of mass dismissals and the takeover of agencies notorious for corruption is not just a crowd-pleaser, but likely a source of immense personal satisfaction for presidents.

There is nothing more pleasing to an executive than to wield executive power in a dramatic manner. On Oct. 27, 1938, for instance, it was announced that the Department of Investigation (DI; today’s National Bureau of Investigation) was investigating the immigration division (today’s Bureau of Immigration or BI) of the Department of Labor; on Oct. 31, it was announced that 21 officials and employees — the entire office, screamed headlines of the day — had been suspended, and a judge appointed acting head. The work of the agency was handed over to the DI (it turned out that, long ahead of the announcement, the BI, founded only two years earlier, had been conducting an investigation into corruption in the immigration office).

Eighty years later practically to the day, headlines again screamed of a mass dismissal, this time, of the Bureau of Customs (BOC). Except operations of the BOC have, this time around, been handed over not to civilians, but to the military.

A lawyer was quick to point to Article XVI, Section 5 (4) of the Constitution: “No member of the armed forces in the active service shall, at any time, be appointed or designated in any capacity to a civilian position in the Government, including government-owned or -controlled corporations or any of their subsidiaries.”

Apparently this question was raised with the Secretary of Justice, who once again demonstrated his talent for service by breezily replying, as only a (government) lawyer can: “The temporary detail/secondment orders will be issued by the relevant AFP/BOC units, not by the Office of the President. Details and secondments do not involve any new designations or appointments, so ‘any time’ is irrelevant. ‘In any capacity’ is also irrelevant for the same reason.”

Questions (extremely serious ones) over the legality of this presidential announcement aside, one has to step back and view this latest presidential adventure in the context of the bigger adventure he’s embarked on: which is, while the rest of the country (and even his coalition composed of many competing parts) fritters away time discussing the antics of the forthcoming midterms, he (the President) has been relentlessly absorbing the armed forces into the executive department.

Any soldier formerly miffed over Communists being appointed to executive positions has less and less reason to complain that their fighting in the field has been squandered away by accommodations with the Left. The Left’s cadres have been slowly evicted from the corridors of power, their leaders once more ordered arrested, and retiring generals put in their place—most significantly and recently, for example, in the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

While senatorial slates — or the lack of them — have been discussed and featured in the news, the President, for his part, has taken to chiding the armed forces for returning power to civilian leaders in the past. He has mused, more than once, over how he’s willing to relinquish power if only a military junta would take his place. Against a backdrop of supposed secret visits by American officials (and public ones by sub-Cabinet level defense officials), which are taken to be hints of a rapprochement with Washington (as it arm-wrestles Beijing over tariffs), there is less and less to get in the way of warm feelings between the military establishment and its commander in chief, and more and more of an atmosphere conducive to feelings of fellowship: When it comes to things like human rights, for example, who is to say a meeting of the minds is impossible?

The President chanting “Open Sesame!” before the glittering hallways of the BOC can either be seen as taking a take-no-prisoners approach to corruption, or a crafty attempt to buy military loyalty on the basis of lining generals’ pockets. Or even both. It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the presidency that military management is attempted as an antidote to civilian corruption. Its having failed in the past is unimportant: The peanut gallery will applaud it; even the most naïve of honest soldiers will be flattered by it; and critics will be confounded by it, because objections can easily be spun as a vigorous defense of the thieving status quo. And the executive, meanwhile, comes one step closer to finding itself pleased by being increasingly comfortable in drab olive fatigues.

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