President Aquino should be careful about appointing a perceived election loser to the post of a provincial governor in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The simple criterion for one to be appointed to that position should be: he/she did not run in the last 2010 national elections and/or he/she did not file his/her certificate of candidacy in the postponed ARMM elections.
One of the arguments made against the postponement of the ARMM elections was: the administration just wanted to avoid an election because the Liberal Party did not have a strong candidate for ARMM governor. The Muslim rebels and political warlords had their share in running the ARMM; and both failed.
The ambitious plan of President Aquino is to clean the ARMM of corruption and jump-start its economic development by appointing people who are not mediocre, but have high academic credentials, with experience as a government administrator and in prosecuting corrupt local officials of the ARMM, and are acceptable to Muslim foreign dignitaries. Does the Muslim community have this kind of men? Why not create a search committee.
—ALEXANDER B. TAHA, tahaalexander@yahoo.com