Somebody once defined a professional as one who knows when it’s the time to go.
Outgoing National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos, a strong willed, maybe even feisty, and outspoken, not necessarily boisterous . woman, perfectly fits the bill. As soon as she learned that her boss, the President, had made big-time a movement in the hierarchy of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), she quit an important post in President Marcos’ Cabinet.
Maybe it’s not an important job, after all, as she was kept in the dark about the change in the leadership— she felt she was entitled to the courtesy of being informed , at least, given her title– that, in addition, stood a tradition on its head and set aside a law that provides a fix term for the AFP chief. She would rather decide to take matters into her own hand than find out in the news later in the day that she was fired. Ignorance is bliss. Better be sane than sorry and talk endlessly about it. Well, she can write a book about it.
Now she can confirm if PBBM is a a true-blue Machiavellian, a question she asked then the presidential candidate which he skillfully curated by saying he had read about him and admired him. Apparently, Carlos threw the read meat in the context that his late father, a former president , first, and a dictator later, also admired Machiavellian, and later became a disciple himself. Carlos must have won more votes for Marcos with the latter’s qualification.
Obviously, Carlos impressed him. Not surprisingly.therefore, she was considered for a Cabinet post in the second Marcos presidency, eventually becoming the NSA chief. The position is so sensitive it was the cause of her not-so-gentle an early exit. It was her “cozy closeness” with Beijing, an expert said, that cost her the job. Marcos or his committee did not vet her before her appointment? What was the reality in her perceived coziness with being close? A Cabinet post, being an alter ego status, implies trust ,confidence and competence. From now on, coziness has a beware sign.
Whatever happened to that popular political smarts of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? In the aftermath, Carlos has since been ensconced in the House of Representatives, where her expertise and service– coziness and all with China, if you will—will come in handy if push comes to shove in the West Philippine Sea dispute with the ancient kingdom. Bullies are tempted by weakness to push their luck on the old-time presumption that might makes right. Ukraine though has punched a hole in that wrong thinking.
To be fair, PBBM hasn’t genuflected to China’s Xi jingPing ,like his predecessor. did during his recent state visit, but carried a bowl like him asking for big loan. Times are hard and as the Tagalog saying goes, “ sino pa ang magbibigay ng sabaw kung hindi ang kapitbahay?” ( who else will give you soup than your neighbor?) Marcos isn’t an empiricist, more like an ideologist. China has described herself as a good neighbor, notwithstanding her expanding military moves in the WSP, fishing there like nobody’s business, while driving Filipino fishermen away and promising loans much earlier to PH that have yet to be kept.
Sen. Imee Marcos, always her brother’s keeper, has been quoted as saying that her brother is a gentle president. That’s in the light of his request via Secretary Benhur Abalos that nearly 1,000 officers, colonels and generals, submit a courtesy resignation to make it easy to weed out undesirables in the Philippine National Police. Her gentle comment was presumably benchmarked on his predecessor’s more heavy-handed style of governance.
His gentleness is also blamed for the off-the-chart price of onions which many believed by his allies in Congress are the result of price manipulation or smuggling. Critics rue that fact, despite the many agriculture-related ills that the nation struggles with , he still holds the Cabinet post for agriculture while “ more importations become this administration’s therapeutic policy. For one, Congressman Joey Salceda has pointed to Chinese-led smuggling syndicate as the culprit in the onion crisis.
Is it gentleness or cluelessness? His resign— now -and –be happy-later offer to police officers has reportedly cause a demoralization in the police organization. It’s been seen as a camouflage for loyalty check. His offer to Xi Jing Ping to a joint mutual exploration for oil in the West Philippine Sea has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court a long time ago, and no one in his camp seems to know.
In the meantime, the President has been making trips abroad in what looks like a long journey to reclaim a nostalgic, legendary image in the international a scene and hopes that it could be rewritten there, first, and at home, second. His magic shibboleth to his foreign audience and local ones is apolitical and all-encompassing: unity to make the world triumphed over adversities. In the meantime, no rest at home for the price of onions, sugar and rice, which are supposed to be the low-hanging fruits for a good, inspiring leader.
Surprisingly, PBMM has yet to come up with a litany of austerity measures to better handle the hard times. It’s politics, stupid, and not economics, a quota subject in top schools where he was not really outstanding, per a former tutor, Solita Monsod. Austerity was a byword in his father’s time. But the Junior appears to be made of different stuff, a gentle one. He will lack no witness in that regard, perhaps even the famous Carlos., despite her not so gentle exit.
