IS IT right to appoint defeated candidates to the government just because they are party-mates of the incumbent president? No, of course not. As Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano said, “Do not make the government a parking lot of jobless politicians.” The memorandum of the Liberal Party to appoint 30 defeated candidates of the LP mirrors the spoils system at its worst. President Aquino himself said: “Just because they are members of the LP does not mean they should be given jobs in the government.”
After all, these defeated politicians have already been rejected by the people. Why force the taxpayers to accept these rejects in appointive positions? And that also means that classmates and shooting partners should not be appointed to the government just because they are classmates and shooting partners.
Public officials should be appointed on the basis of competence and qualifications. Which is why Sen. Mar Roxas should be exempted from the abhorrence against defeated candidates being appointed to government positions. Roxas has proven his competence not only as a senator but as an executive when he was appointed secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry. Roxas ran the DTI very efficiently when he was its head.
On the other hand, P-Noy’s leadership qualities are being put to the test by the continued bickering between rival factions in his administration. The Samar and Balay groups are still sniping at and stabbing each other in the back one year after the end of the campaign. Victory in the polls only made the infighting worse. Both sides want more of the spoils of political victory, again the ugly face of the spoils system.
A good leader should have been able to put his foot down and told his followers: “No more bickering, infighting and back-stabbing. Stop all that! Let us work together to push reforms and improve the lives of the people. After all, we are in this together. If I fail, we all fail. And how can I succeed when you are pulling each other down instead of helping one another? The next person I catch backbiting anybody will be out of a job immediately.”
But P-Noy has not said any similar thing. Instead, he has allowed the intramurals to simmer, with him standing quietly at the sidelines. Maybe he likes the infighting, then no group would be strong enough to even threaten his administration. You know, divide the enemy. But that’s not the quality of a good leader. That’s the quality of an insecure leader. In fact, of a “no leader.” A leader is supposed to lead, not to divide, his forces.
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Some quarters have reservations about the nomination of retiring Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales for appointment as ombudsman. For one, there is a conflict of interest here, according to Ateneo law professor Alan Paguia.
The law creating the Office of the Ombudsman provides that all and “any public official is under its jurisdiction.” There is no exemption, Paguia said. But in a decision, the Supreme Court exempted the members of the judiciary from the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.
“Read the law and the Constitution with a fine-toothed comb and you will find no such exemption,” he said. “The law exempts no one. When the law does not exempt, not even the (Supreme Court) can exempt anybody.”
What about the axiom that “the law is what the Supreme Court says it is”? he was asked.
“That is true when the law is not clear,” he answered. “When the law is unclear, it is the job of the SC to make it clear. But the law creating the Office of the Ombudsman is very clear: ‘Any public official’ is under its jurisdiction. Members of the judiciary are public officials and therefore under its jurisdiction.”
What does it have to do with the appointment of Justice Carpio-Morales as ombudsman?
“How can the ombudsman (assuming it is Justice Carpio-Morales) enforce its jurisdiction over members of the judiciary when she was a member of the SC that voted to exempt the judiciary?” this was Paguia’s reply to the previous question.
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Forgotten in the recent rush to give employees minuscule pay increases are the rank and file employees of Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), as differentiated from its officers and directors. The last time the 5,800 rank and file LBP workers were given pay raises was six years ago, notwithstanding the provision of LBP’s charter that its compensation plan shall be subject to periodic review by the Board of Directors no more than once every two years. Supervening events like last year’s national elections, Senate inquiry on the pay and perks of government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) and government financial institutions (GFIs), and the issuance of Executive Order 7 derailed the approval of the compensation plan.
With the exemption of LBP from the Salary Standardization Law (SSL), economic benefits enjoyed by its employees used to be at par with that of other GOCCs/GFIs, but now it pales in comparison with its counterparts in the government sector. “This is ironic because the primary purpose of exemption from SSL is to provide competitive benefits to LBP employees to maintain and attract bright minds in its workforce,” said a letter from its employee association, the Landbank Employees Association (LBPEA).
“This present predicament of LBP employees is brought about by its outdated pay plan. Disregarded is the fact that that the institution has been remitting annually to the national government billions of dividends earned through the hard work and dedication of its employees.”