Unceremonious

Every Cabinet member serves at the pleasure of the president, but if President Aquino wants to keep solid professionals in his Cabinet, he better show them more respect.

If Aquino disapproves of the work of Health Secretary Enrique Ona, all he has to do is bid Ona goodbye and say “thank you” for his service to the nation.

Just like how United States President Barack Obama let go of his Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a dignified White House ceremony, despite obvious disagreements over US policy in Syria and the handling of President Bashar al-Assad and the extremist Islamic State enemies. No dressing it up as a firing for cause, no sniffing around for a scandal, no waiting even for a resignation. No drama whatsoever.

Contrast that to Mr. Aquino’s inexpert handling of Secretary Ona. The slow-motion crucifixion could only turn off highly skilled professionals from joining government service—why risk one’s reputation and career by signing up for the Cabinet? Who loses ultimately? The people who will be left with second-rate professionals reigning over the career professionals in our Cabinet ministries.

No question has been raised about Ona’s first-rate qualifications and track record as a doctor and hospital director: for eight years head of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, a leading public hospital; one of the country’s top organ transplant surgeons; trained in reputable hospitals abroad and authorized to practice medicine abroad as well.

However, a little over a month ago, he went on leave. Initially Ona said he was going on a temporary sick leave over allergies to a hair dye. (If Ona wanted to downplay the brewing storm, that cockamamie explanation certainly didn’t help. The nation’s equivalent of the surgeon general needing a month to recover from an overdose of over-the-counter hair blackener?)

Soon the stories began to filter out. The President had asked him to explain the questioned purchase of more than P800-million worth of antipneumonia vaccines. There were two competing vaccines that the Department of Health was poised to adopt for a targeted 700,000 children as part of the government’s antipoverty assistance. Ona chose the cheaper but less effective one—based on a World Health Organization (WHO) endorsement, and this saved the country P231 million, he explained to the President.

In a highly nuanced report, WHO concluded that it is a “subjective value judgment” when the government chooses between the cheaper vaccine that prevents a milder but more common infection vis-à-vis a more expensive vaccine that prevents a more serious but less common disease. “The choice between preventing thousands of potentially fatal IPD [invasive pneumococcal disease] episodes compared to millions of milder but far more prevalent otitis [inflammation of the middle ear] media episodes is inherently a subjective value judgment,” the report said. Ona assured the President that he chose the cheaper vaccine in his “best judgment.”

The scientific debate seems so esoteric to the layman that it is easily manipulated in the more earthly game of politics. Already, an undersecretary, Janette Garin, has been designated acting health secretary. Garin had served in Congress with President Aquino and is part of the President’s Liberal Party. She was a stalwart at the height of the debates on the Reproductive Health Law. Showing a surfeit of enthusiasm bordering on schadenfreude, she has begun a reorganization of the department that, at least officially, she leads only on an “acting” capacity. Should Ona survive this episode and live to return to his old office, he might not recognize it any more.

This is all unfortunate. President Aquino’s marching orders to Ona when he was appointed was to advance universal healthcare. Ona seems to have done well by that standard. In that sense, Mr. Aquino might have taken a leaf from Obama whose health program, now known as Obamacare, survived a Supreme Court challenge by the skin of its teeth and is now threatened with funding cuts by the US Congress. In contrast, Mr. Aquino’s health program was in fact boosted with the Sin Tax Law passed by Congress, and could very well be one of the lasting legacies of his presidency.

It is bad news for Philippine democracy when we allow the politicians to hound the professionals with threats of contrived antigraft charges. Indeed it falls upon a popularly elected President to insulate his handpicked professionals in the Cabinet from political hounds, and give the former the support they need to do their work.