Wanted: DILG chief

For the second time in two years, President Aquino is faced with the difficult task of appointing the chief of the Department of Interior and Local Government. The first time, the difficulty drove him to run the DILG himself, even if only temporarily. It will not demean the President, or stain the memory of the late Jesse Robredo, if we repeat what is already an open secret: that in 2010, the newly elected President was reluctant to appoint Robredo, one of his campaign managers, to the DILG, because of a complicated working relationship.

The second time, the difficulty of the choice confronting the President involves the Robredo factor again—because the man who was appointed reluctantly, and initially only in an acting capacity, had over the last two years become virtually irreplaceable. It is to the President’s credit that his initial reservations gave way to an enthusiastic appreciation of Robredo’s gift for good governance; it was characteristic of Robredo that he continued to serve with or without appreciation or, indeed, confirmation by the Commission on Appointments.

The President will be hard-pressed to appoint a successor worthy of Robredo’s legacy—but that is exactly what he needs to do. We have all come out of a bracing period when we came face to face with an exemplary public servant, when the President himself had to reach back to the country’s past and point to his martyred father in order to make sense of the belated Robredo phenomenon, when we realized the true heights of achievement a politician of true integrity and undisputed competence can scale; it would be a great waste of civic capital to simply go back to business as usual.

Generally speaking, appointees to the top post of the DILG fall into three categories. There are the executives (e.g., Cesar Sarino, Rafael Alunan), whom a president appoints to ensure that one of the government’s largest bureaucracies is functioning well, preferably to meet policy goals. There are the enforcers (e.g., Alfredo Lim, Robert Barbers, Angelo Reyes), whom a president names usually from the ranks of retired police or military generals, and who personify an administration’s “peace and order” objectives. And then there are the politicians, whom a strategic-minded president appoints either to dismantle the local government apparatus of a dictatorship (e.g., Aquilino Pimentel Jr.) or to harness the department’s formidable resources for prospective political gain (e.g., Ronaldo Puno).

As became clear after his shocking death, and especially during the slow period of mourning when a grateful nation discovered his many qualities and came to claim Naga City’s favorite son for its own, Robredo did not fit any of the usual categories.

His own field of expertise was local government, having been the much-admired, multi-awarded six-term mayor of Naga. That qualified him, eminently, for the DILG portfolio. But his approach to public service—that made him an ideal local governments secretary.

Robredo had impressive personal discipline, always attending to matters immediately and leaving little or no backlog at work. (He was also very strict about spending his weekends with his family, which, he never tired of saying, kept him grounded.) He was admirably accessible: to reporters, to various local executives, to the urban poor, to academics and civic groups, to anyone who needed to see him. He was scrupulously honest, with a lifestyle that after over two decades in political power can best be described as unbelievably modest. And he worked wherever he was to empower the people he served; in the end, he was engaged in the task of reinventing an entire government department.

We can sum up his brand of public service, thus, as essentially one of humility: The power he held, whether as mayor or DILG chief, he never saw as his.

Here’s the thing: The stakes in the appointment of a new DILG chief are much higher this time around, because in a few months the filing of certificates of candidacy for the 2013 elections begins in earnest. Indeed, the disgraceful preening and positioning of certain politicians to replace him is testimony to the power, the electoral potential, of the post of DILG chief. We need a successor who, like Robredo, will not claim that power for his, or her, own.