`Dragon Lady' out of Palace, named full-time HUDCC head

Exit Leonora de Jesus, enter Prof. Aphrodicio Laquian?

The Presidential Management Staff will have a new chief soon, Malacañang said yesterday, as outgoing PMS Secretary De Jesus is slated to be "promoted" to full Cabinet rank as chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).

Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora said, however, that Laquian's appointment will be issued only after the former University of the Philippines professor's Canadian immigrant status is officially renounced.

At the House, Makati Rep. Joker Arroyo accused De Jesus of "sleeping on the job" because the PMS did not exercise "damage control" in the raging controversy involving President Estrada and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Perfecto Yasay.

"The President is in trouble... the events call for damage control. That is a PMS function... (but De Jesus) says nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing," Arroyo said, referring to the recent disclosures by Yasay that the President tried to influence SEC's investigation of alleged stock market irregularities.

News of De Jesus' impending ouster from the PMS has been doing the rounds for days, but Mr. Estrada himself said that performance and not ratings will decide if any Cabinet member will be replaced.

De Jesus, who has served three presidents with the PMS, netted the lowest credibility rating among department secretaries in the latest Pulse Asia survey.

"I have no decision on that yet (PMS chief removal). The survey has nothing to do with it," said the President.

Zamora said Laquian is on his way to re-acquiring his Filipino citizenship.

"He (Laquian) has already filed (his citizenship petition) with the Office of the Solicitor General and within a few weeks, perhaps, he may be able to get it back already," Zamora said.

Interviewed over dzMM radio yesterday, Zamora confirmed The STAR report two weeks ago that Laquian was being recruited by the President to serve as PMS chief.

"Basically, what we're looking at is for him (Laquian) as PMS chief because Secretary De Jesus is going to be permanent in housing," he said, but admitted that all this was still tentative.

For the meantime, he said, Laquian serves as presidential "consultant."

Laquian has a doctorate in public administration and has been a long-time consultant of Mr. Estrada. The former UP professor, who was "helpful" in the 1998 elections, acquired Canadian citizenship when he migrated to Canada on a work contract.

Meanwhile, Arroyo lamented that De Jesus' PMS was "a fair-weather office that wants only the good things -- going over contracts, screening appointees, advising the President."

He said the BW Resources controversy, in which the President allegedly tried to clear BW executive and friend Dante Tan, has put Mr. Estrada's credibility in question.

Arroyo said the PMS, being the think-tank and the management staff of the President, should have exercised damage control much like the White House did for US President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"The PMS has not put the wagons around him the way White House staff did in the Lewinsky scandal ... After all, PMS is the nerve center of Malacañang, proud and obsessed with its claim that deals are cleared with it," he said. - Marichu Villanueva, Jess Diaz

Arroyo said as matters stand, the President "is out there alone fending for himself."

The Makati lawmaker belongs to the President's Lapian ng Masang Pilipino (LAMP) party but counts himself with the opposition in the House.