Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of state to two former U.S. presidents, had a warning to any Cabinet member: don’t do or say things you wouldn’t like to see in the front page of the Washington Post.
Former NEDA Secretary Ernesto Pernia didn’t think probably this was applicable in his case. Nothing to worry about: he resigned first, then saw that what he said landed on the front page of national papers, hardcopy and online.
No offense meant or malice imputed. Maybe burnished truth. The Palace even showered him with peans for his contributions to the Duterte government. Spinmeisters call that damage control.
Asked for the reason of his untimely departure, given that the government is in the thick of the so-called war against the unwieldy corona virus, he said there was problem in the orchestra he belonged to.
First off, there was dissonance in the Cabinet orchestra, deprecatingly owning up to the instrument that was the cause of what was out of tune. And then, more seriously, he thought the orchestra was, well, not well-orchestrated.
There you go. Either the musical arrangement was a bomb or the conductor wasn’t as good as he should be in using the baton. Using Pernia’s fitting metaphor in governance, there were problems in policies and there was problem in leadership. Ultimately, it boils down to leadership.
No rocket science needed to pinpoint where the buck stops. Pernia clarified though that his nocturnal boss was not the conductor people might think would be. No, it’s not Duterte. I hope it’s not that bully of a neighbor caricatured as Winnie the Pooh either.
Later, he doubled down on what he thought his younger successor Karl Chua should do by advising him to have an independent mind and not just agree on anything. Pernia slipped a bit when he said that Duterte usually believes the first one who gets his ear.
Did Pernia really believe the new NEDA chief will channel him? He himself did not think so. Chua as the new player in the elite club would mean less debates in the Cabinet. If only for one obvious reason: he is a former underling of Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez with whom Pernia was believed to be at loggerheads.
As if Pernia was telling the new kid on the block, you be a policy wonk or a policy wimp.
Rumsfeld discovered where a problem like this emanates. Those around the President, he said, had already outsized egos before they joined government and their new position has little to do with anything.
In his book “Locked in the Cabinet, former labor secretary Robert Reich during President Bill Clinton’s time, wrote that there is no absolute reason for any president to meet with the entire Cabinet.
“Cabinet officers have nothing in common except the first word in our titles,” he wrote. “Even the formal titles belie reality. Each of us has a special responsibility for one slice of America. Some of the slices are larger than others; some of the slices crisscross. I make a list of the real Cabinet while I pretend to listen.”
(Oh well, is that why Sen. Bong Go is omnipresent in Duterte meetings with his Cabinet? For all we know, he could be part of Duterte’s real Cabinet. )
People think top government officials make decisions that change the nation. Not so, he said. They spend most of their time managing problems, making temporary fixes, mediating among warring factions, nudging subordinates and colleagues in directions that seem sensible. Decisions ,according to Reich, only reassure the public government is on their side or they can cause the public to doubt that government has clue.
Ten thousand miles across the Pacific, the White House has been mockingly described as a nursery and the members of the Cabinet merely babysitters of the principal occupant. It’s public knowledge that anyone who disagreed with President Trump on policy or perspective usually got the door.
Of late, Trump is being agitated by his camp to get rid of America’s top doctor Anthony Fauci who has been making statements or displaying body language inconsistent with the tweeter-in-chief in addressing issues on the COVID 19 catastrophe. Many believe Fauci’s days are numbered.
In war, so it is said, truth is the first casualty. Cabinet people, like Pernia and others before and after him, may just be collateral damage.
Asked what he would do now as private person, Pernia said he is considering writing a book. It could be a bombshell, no less a front-page story in the making.
