This article was written prior to GMA meeting with Congressman Martin Romualdez yesterday. I am posting it for posterity in the event that it may become a reality in the future.
Up until the last minute before the UniTeam’s Miting De Avance rally, Marcos supporters were still hoping for the endorsement of the President. Duterte did not endorse Marcos publicly in any of the PDP-Laban rally’s he attended. He only made the pitch for Inday and casually at that. He focused more on the Senatorial and local candidates. Maybe it was enough for him that PDP-Laban endorsed Marcos after its initial push for Inday Sara as Vice-President.
Inevitably, comparisons are now being drawn about management styles between Duterte and Marcos. By the time Duterte was unofficially the winner, he had conducted his first press conference on his own in Davao City. His inner circle was able to produce a list of Cabinet appointments and the flights to Davao then were full of those paying a courtesy call on the President-elect as well as to meet with Duterte over an appointment to government.
By May 16, the names of the appointees had been released and the transition team was coordinating with the Office the President under Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa through his successor Salvador Medialdea, Bong Go and Jun Evasco.
It is now May 18 and the President-elect Ferdinand Marcos has only announced one Cabinet appointment and that is former MMDA Chair Benhur Abalos as the incoming Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government. Marcos’ Chief of Staff and Spokesperson, Vince Rodriguez, confirmed that former Labor and Employment Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma and Susan Ople, daughter of former Marcos Labor Secretary Blas Ople, have both been offered to head the Department of Labor and Employment and the newly created Department of Migrant Workers, respectively. Both are consulting with their family’s before making their final decision.
It does not augur well for Marcos that GMA will not become the Speaker of the House of Representatives, as it may have been agreed upon, or as GMA thought it to be her right, given the role she played in making the Marcos-Duterte tandem a reality. One, would not have won an overwhelming majority, without the other. It also applies that one should bite the hand which handed over the two top posts of the land on a silver platter. GMA may not be able to win a national post by direct election but she knows how to move the levers of power in her network.
The point here is Marcos should know better than to have feet of clay early on in the most important part of the journey of his political life. GMA was largely responsible for the Marcos-Duterte tandem becoming a reality after all the family drama between the President, Inday and Bong Go. You did not hear PRRD ever mentioning GMA after the UniTeam was forged with the alliance between the PFP and Lakas-CMD. Eventually both the President and Bong Go withdrew their Certificates of Candidacy for President and Senator respectively.
Tradition has it that both the member of the Senate and the House, have a discussion about the candidates for the top officers of the two chambers until a consensus emerges, after which it is up to the President who is to be anointed. One also has to remember that in this case, GMA is not coming off a position of weakness. In 2016, she managed to obtain her release from detention. This time around she is coming off a three-year hiatus because of term limits but is still active despite remaining in the background.
It is ominous now that Marcos appears to be stuck in rut, unable to form a Cabinet, specially appointments to the portfolios comprising the economic cluster, in order to quiet an anxious local and international business community.
GMA is not one to be trifled with. Not by anyone. Recall how she let an off-the-cuff remark by then House Speaker and PDP-Laban Secretary-General Pantaleon Alvarez pass before eventually ousting him in 2018 together with Inday Sara Duterte and Imee Marcos.
In the case of Duterte, he has always deferred to GMA, according her the respect due as a mentor and former President. This is why she was given the appointment of Presidential Adviser for Programs and Projects of the Clark Special Economic Zone.
Marcos’ Cabinet Search Committee is composed of Atty. Vic Rodriguez, former Congressman Anton Lagdameo, Atty. Philip Nazareno, Benhur Abalos, Partido Federal Chair Jun Tamayo and former Manila Congresswoman Naida Angping.
GMA has endorsed Martin Romualdez as the next Speaker. Other party’s have followed suit. It is in the bag for Romualdez but the silence of GMA is deafening. There are reports that she has accepted the post of Philippine Ambassador to the UN but this does not do fit too well with her stature as a former President. She is not likely to show her hand until the timing is right.
If you have read her memoirs, you get the impression that the reason why she has remained active in the political arena is she still has unfinished business to attend to. More than likely, it is the political and economic reforms she failed to institutionalize during her term, which was marred by the expose’s unleashed by the Yellows who wanted to oust her in the same manner they did with Erap.
We could have avoided these political upheavals, have a more effective and efficient and effective political structure and become more economically progressive under a parliamentary form of government. I am of the opinion that this is what GMA hopes to achieve as her political legacy.
President-elect Marcos should not waste this opportunity for his political legacy as well. A federal parliamentary government would enable more efficient delivery of basic services to the people and more judicious use of public funds for government services and infrastructure development.
The 1987 Constitution should be amended or scrapped altogether. It is a knee-jerk reaction to martial law and is the best example of historical revisionism with its failure to address the insurgency and the Muslim secessionist movement, both of which were the products of Ninoy Aquino’s intent to grab power. We should go back to the basic structure of the Malolos Constitution which is the product of the revolutionaries against Spain who wanted an independent Philippines.
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