MINDANAO LINK
By ANTONIO FIGUEROA

On Cabinet revamp

NEXT week at the earliest, new faces will be installed as Cabinet members. Or more pragmatically, recycled faces, mostly old, nearly all of them defeated candidates in the 2008 elections. They will be rewarded for their loyalty to the regime.

Without saying it, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, exercising her prerogative, will reconfigure her official family with the hope that the “new” Cabinet will ensure she attains her agenda and her tenure aptly protected from any form of adventurism that has threatened it.

The changing of the guard, in a manner of speaking, is expected to be criticized. That has always been the trend ever since, and there’s no arguing that it will continue, especially when the opposition finds no link to the personalities being appointed. Otherwise, if the anti-Arroyo choices are selected, the incumbent leadership may be creating its own death knell.

Cabinet reshuffling is an event that often stirs conjectures on the direction of the national leadership. In the case of Arroyo, her “strong republic” agenda is on the block. With the new secretaries expecting to pursue adjustments that fit their own personal directions, one can only surmise what impact, positive or otherwise, the revamp will have.

To an outsider, any reshuffle is nothing but an accommodation. Failed candidates who have shown better-than-usual support for the sitting leadership always get the pat on the back after the one-year prohibition period has expired. And that pat is an affirmation of a “good boy” act that deserves recompense in the form of Cabinet appointment.

We do not know yet if Sultan Jamalul Kiram, sickly and old, will get a post, in the same manner that no one is sure which way Vic Magsaysay and Chavit Singson will be going.

It is an irony that the best time the Cabinet was manned by the most talented people took place under the Marcos era, while the government was ruled by an iron fist. Whether it was a case of sound policy or simply just a matter of aesthetic preference, that hapless period in our history was also the most productive in terms of agriculture, trade, and energy initiatives.

In this coming revamp, few things are predictable as far as preference is concerned.
First, the President will continue to reinforce her Cabinet with military retirees who, by the way, are the holdouts that have kept her leadership secure from direct military intervention.

Second, a handful of displaced politicians will be called in to join the musical chair.
Third, secretaries who have failed to hurdle the Commission on Appointments will have no option but to receive their walking papers soon.

Fifth, transfers and rearrangements are expected as old Cabinet members will get new appointments, in or out of the official family.

And, fifth, no one from the private sector is getting senior Cabinet positions because these are exclusively set aside for those who have always sing hosannas to the Palace agenda.

But any Cabinet revamp can also create animosity as a result of displacement. Secretaries who are booted out have a mouthful of things to share outside, albeit not publicly. Nevertheless, a secret, no matter how guardedly kept, always ends up being known by many people.

More than that, though, a Cabinet reshuffle goes beyond aesthetic value and political accommodation. President Arroyo knows for a fact that the performance her official family will be vital in determining the positioning of her men in the 2010 elections. A failure can only mean the difference between electoral flop and partisan triumph./PN