Palace won't fire Zamora, De Jesus

Mind your own business.

This was Malacañang's message yesterday to Rep. Ernesto Herrera (Bohol, LAMP) as it accused the congressman of interfering in the President's power to hire and fire Cabinet members.

Herrera said the other day that the President should put his house in order by firing two of his feuding officials, Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora and Presidential Management Staff chief Leonora de Jesus.

Zamora told The STAR yesterday that Herrera has no right to advise President Estrada on matters pertaining to "purely executive prerogatives."

"The President will be deciding this soon enough," he said. "It's not for him (Herrera) to decide. He should leave it to the President to decide how to run his office."

Zamora denied that he and De Jesus are feuding, saying that Herrera's information was based merely on media reports.

Presidential Spokesman Fernando Barican, who is identified with De Jesus' camp, also denied that the PMS chief is engaged in a turf war with Zamora.

"I don't think there has really been quarreling (for) turf," he said. "I would simply note that even among members of Congress, there are often different points of view. I'm sure if Congressman Herrera will ask everybody who doesn't have his point of view to resign from Congress, it's also going to be somewhat difficult to do the public's business."

De Jesus is presently in Los Angeles to attend the annual board meeting of Century Holdings, a subsidiary of Philippine National Bank.

Last week, she was said to have cried after Zamora announced to the media that she would be removed from the PMS and "promoted" to the soon-to-be-created Department of Housing.

She and Zamora were reported to have "sorted things out" after that incident.

Malacañang officials suspect that Herrera is a "mouthpiece" of Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara, who belongs to a bloc opposed to Zamora's group.

Last Thursday, Herrera urged President Estrada to fire Zamora and De Jesus to put some order in Malacañang following the media skirmish between the two.

In a story in The STAR yesterday, Herrera said the prevailing impression is that Zamora and De Jesus have been doing nothing for the past eight months but fight for turf and supremacy.

He said the fight has gone far enough for Mr. Estrada to put an end to it by firing the protagonists, and that appointing a chief of staff will not stop the skirmish.

He suggested that the President abolish the PMS and Zamora's office once the Office of the Chief of Staff has been put in place and operational.

The President had described as "just minor differences" the reported intrigues and in-fighting raging among some Cabinet members.

He can tolerate them as long as the officials do their jobs properly, he added.

"Actually, there is no big intrigue here," the President said. "Only the media are making a big thing out of them. Maybe their (officials) people are the ones fighting. But my Cabinet, even Secretaries Zamora and De Jesus are talking to each other. So it is a small thing that should not be exaggerated."

The Chief Executive dismissed speculations that the Office of the Chief of Staff would be another layer in the bureaucracy at the Palace.

Mr. Estrada will appoint Aprodicio Laquian his chief of staff once he reacquires Filipino citizenship, Malacañang said yesterday.

Laquian, a naturalized Canadian, is scheduled to swear allegiance to the Republic at the Office of the Solicitor General in Makati City, along with other repatriates next week.

Barican told reporters yesterday that the repatriation of Laquian, along with that of other former Filipinos, has been "moving quickly, regularly."

"Perhaps, sometime next week, this process can be completed," he said. "In which case, if that is so, he will have reacquired his citizenship formally by next week, which would qualify him for consideration for appointment by the President to any position which the law permits."

He also denied allegations of Sen. Raul Roco that Mr. Estrada had violated the law when he appointed Laquian as his consultant during the 1998 presidential elections.

The Omnibus Election Code bans foreigners from getting involved in Philippine elections in whatever capacity, whether as campaign manager or volunteer.

Laquian, who was a professor of public administration at the University of the Philippines, was undertaking a Canadian-funded study on the Philippine electoral process at that time, he added.

Barican said the funds were also used to publish Laquian's and his wife Elenor's book, "Joseph `Erap' Ejercito Estrada, the Centennial President."

He said the book was "the measurement" of the couple's involvement in the Estrada presidential campaign.

"So the involvement was in the course of academically writing a book," he said. "That's on record. The book has been published and there is no doubt that that is the nature of involvement he (Laquian) had during the campaign. I think he advises more informal than formal because of the relationship."

The President and the Laquians did not violate any law during the presidential campaign, he said. -