Clarita as a name for girls is of Latin derivation, and the meaning of the name Clarita is “bright, famous”. Clarita is a variant form of Claire (Latin): French variant spelling of Clara.
The above is what defines incoming National Security Adviser Clarita R. Carlos. The name best describes the individual who will play a large role in shaping the way forward for the country as one of the close advisers of the President.
Clarita Reyes Carlos is a Filipino political scientist and commentator, academic, and educator.[1][2] She was tapped by President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in June 2022 to join his cabinet as National Security Adviser.[3] She served as the 16th President of the National Defense College of the Philippines from 1998 to 2001, becoming the first female and first civilian to lead the institution.[4]
She is a retired professor of political science at the University of the Philippines Diliman.[5]
Carlos earned her bachelor’s degree in foreign service from the University of the Philippines Diliman, where she also obtained her master’s and doctorate degrees in political science. She conducted post-doctoral work on political psychology at Cornell University and comparative foreign policy analysis at the University of California at Los Angeles as a Fulbright Visiting Fellow.[6]
Carlos started her career teaching political science at the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman, in 1967 at the age of 20. She also taught environment and international relations in the same university. During her tenure, she held numerous professorial chairs, namely: the Elpidio Quirino Professorial Chair in International Relations, Maximo Kalaw Professorial Chair on Peace, and the CASAA Professorial Chair. She retired in June 2011 as a full professor of political science having taught at the university for a total of 56 years.
She also taught European studies at Ateneo de Manila University and at San Beda Law graduate school.[7]
Carlos served as the 16th President of the National Defense College of the Philippines from 1998 to 2001, being the first female and first civilian to lead the institution.[4] During the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, Carlos served as the head of Office of Strategic and Special Concerns of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.[2][7] In 2020, Carlos was among the individuals appointed by the Commission on Higher Education in their Technical Panel for Political Science.[8] She also served at various capacities in the Senate, House of Representatives, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, and Department of Transportation.
The minute Professor Carlos threw her first question at the Presidential candidates present at the SMNI Debate series, a political star was born. She had former National Security Adviser and Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales stuttering when he answered her question about the implications of the QUAD alliance on the Philippines.
It was also the political acid test of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who had been accused by the opposition of being dumb because he only graduated from Oxford with a Special Diploma and not one which signified he completed a full degree.
One of the selling points of Leni Robredo was she graduated from UP with an Economics degree and completed her Bachelor of Laws and passed the bar on her second try. Few Filipinos understood that a law degree does not even qualify as a Master’s degree in terms of post-graduate learning. You need to take up a Master’s of Law separately similar to Juan Ponce Enrile and Gilberto Teodoro, who completed theirs at Harvard.
Marcos answered the question to Carlos’ satisfaction. The first SMNI debate was akin to a thesis defense which had the candidates sweating and wracking their brains for the correct answers. Filipinos thought the same as they thumbed down the subsequent CNN debate which asked soft questions of the other candidates who snubbed the SMNI debate.
The SMNI panel composed of Professor Carlos, Dante Ang II and Rolex Suplico effectively rendered the Comelec-sponsored debates inutile because of the inane questions and the obvious anti-Marcos bias by the debate “moderators.” It turned out later that the event was sub-contracted by the Comelec to an events outfit identified with a prominent opposition personality which was unable to pay the venue what was due for the use of the same. The last debate was canceled and never held.
The opposition and their UP allies have gone to the extent of canceling Professor Carlos for her perceived bias for Marcos, specially after the second SMNI debate which was a one-on-one with the panel. Marcos again acquitted himself and Carlos was eminently satisfied with his answers.
What does Clarita Carlos bring to the table as Marcos’ National Security Adviser?
A lot. The good Professor will be the second civilian to hold the post after Norberto Gonzales. Normally, the post of the NSA has always been given to a retired or active duty AFP officer. Despite her age, Professor Carlos is very much up-to-date in national security concepts and theories. You can glean from her statements that she leans more to the whole-of-nation approach to national security, both at the domestic and international level. Her excellent background in the field of political psychology will also help the President in negotiating with other leaders since she is a firm adherent of the concept of the operational code construct.
Duterte’s operational code
Carlos’ appointment could not have come at a better time as we face a host of challenges both on the domestic and international front, political, economic and in public health because of the pandemic. The Professor is known for her approach which takes into account strategic nation-building as evidenced by the questions she posed to the candidates during the SMNI Debate series.
What this means is combining the military and non-military aspects of national security into a coherent strategy focusing on internal and external threats, relative to nation-building and developing short, medium and long-term development plan focused on making the country resilient and prepared for the identified threats.
This covers political, economic, energy and natural resources, homeland, cybersecurity, environmental, food and human security. Some of these have already been addressed by the Duterte administration with the passage of the National ID and the Anti-Terror Bills but there is more to be done in terms of food and energy security which makes the Philippines vulnerable.
A good example of refocusing is the change in orientation from infantry units to more of marines and navy assets given we are an archipelagic country with a large coastline to protect. Currently, the Philippine Army is the largest of all the service commands of the AFP. Carlos can advise the President to reorient the national defense budget towards the procurement of additional naval assets to patrol and defend the country’s coastline and uphold territorial sovereignty and integrity.
Carlos will be taking a lot of flak from vested interests because of her no-nonsense approach to her work. This has been proven with her objectivity about the issue of the Marcos’. She is one of few in the academe who have long called for an objective assessment of the Marcos administration to put an end to the debate about the good and the bad side of the first Marcos administration.
Her fellow academics at the UP have ostracized and canceled her because of this. They prefer to stick to the narrative that Marcos Sr. did not do any good for the country. This is quite a contradiction considering Marcos’ Cabinet then was composed of the best and the brightest from the state university, which he was also an alumnus of.
She is also automatically the Vice-Chairperson of the Anti-Terror Council which has exclusive powers granted to it by the enabling law and the implementing rules and regulations governing it. The Professor brings a fresh perspective to the function of the National Security Adviser because she is not an ordinary member of the academe given she was also President of the National Defense College of the Philippines where military officers enroll in for their Master’s in National Security Administration post-graduate studies. This means she has a more than working relationship with the officers corps of the AFP, some of whom have been her students at the defense college.
Carlos’ appointment is an excellent one by BBM. It dispels the notion that the opposition has been selling to the public that he will be following in his father’s footsteps with the militarization of the bureaucracy which is the farthest from the truth. Marcos has been tapping the best and the brightest for key Cabinet posts.
The good Professor is no spring chicken but the National Security Adviser is not one where physical exertion is required. It is more intellect that is the the primary requirement and Carlos definitely brings clarity to the post with her background and experience.
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