Aquino should form new brain trust

In the early months of the Aquino administration, then senator Joker Arroyo called the President’s men a bunch of “student council officers” for bungling an executive order on the Truth Commission. Recently, Arroyo once again heaped scorn on Aquino’s men for the amateurish content of the President’s speech on prime-time television regarding the raging

issue on the pork barrel. He recalled that during Cory’s time, Malacañang had brilliant advisers who were products of Harvard University and were bar topnotchers like Rene Saguisag, Fulgencio Factoran, Teodoro Locsin Jr., Mariano Sarmiento.

It may be recalled that President Ferdinand Marcos had a penchant for surrounding himself with brilliant thinkers and writers like UP dropouts Blas Ople and Adrian Cristobal, and UST dropout Kit Tatad and degree-holder Juan Tuvera. Indeed, because of these men the pronouncements emanating then from Malacañang were notable for elegance of language and suaveness of logic (but alas, they were only for a certain period of time!).

Curiously, President Fidel Ramos had himself and militarist Col. Jose Almonte; President Gloria Arroyo had former communist Rigoberto Tiglao and undercover Alex Magno; President Erap Estrada had his midnight cowboys.

US President John Kennedy relied on the pens and insights of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Theodore Sorensen. France’s President Charles de Gaulle used to summon Andre Gide, a philosopher-writer. Well, President Abe Lincoln had himself.

It is high time that P-Noy reconstituted and strengthened his Malacañang “think tank.” Perhaps, the likes of Edwin Lacierda, Ricky Carandang, Manuel Quezon III, Herminio Coloma are tepid for our time. Surely, P-Noy needs aides well-grounded in the humanities and law, and steeped in the culture of cutting logic, irreverence and iconoclasm, in the mold of Saguisag and Teddyboy Locsin or Raul Pangalangan and Randy David; or the rising public intellectual, the very young Harvard valedictorian, lawyer Oscar Franklin Tan.

—EDWARD B. CONTRERAS,

Cagayan de Oro City