Angara will be accompanied by the new head of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS), described as his "Girl Friday" since Senate days, Ma. Celia H. Fernandez, who will also speak at the breakfast forum in the Ristorante La Dolce Fontana on Annapolis street in Greenhills.
Also in Angara’s "team" at the gathering will be his newly-designated Senior Deputy Executive Secretary for Public Affairs and Legislative Liaison, former Manila Congressman Ramon S. "Dondon" Bagatsing, Jr.
The forum, which starts at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday), will probably be held monthly, instead of weekly, as it used to be, announced the club’s president, STAR Publisher/Chairman Max V. Soliven. He said that owing to the pressure of his currentl local and overseas commitments, the meetings of the joggers-walkers group and guests could, for the next few months, have to be scheduled less frequently. Soliven is scheduled to leave for Singapore this week to address a journalists’ forum there, then proceed to New Delhi, India, for the World Congress of the International Press Institute. He is Chairman of the IPI Philippine National Committee.
At a preliminary one-on-one meeting with Soliven, Secretary Angara said last Friday that, aside from Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Ramon "Eki" Cardenas (whom Ms. Fernandez, with the rank of Undersecretary, replaced last week as PMS chief), there are three other Senior Deputy Executive Secretaries; namely, Bagatsing, Luis Liwanag II, and Ricky Legarda. When he took over the post vacated by former Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora last Jan. 6, a Saturday, a week and a half ago, Angara had brought in his own "team", which is his usual style dating back to his years as president of the University of the Philippines (1981-97), Chairman of the Philippine National Bak (PNB) between 1998 and 1999, and Senate President, 1993-1995).
Angara’s former post of Secretary of Agriculture was filled on January 6, too, by his chosen successor there, his Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban who was elevated by the President to Cabinet rank.
Is Angara "empire building"? Will he have a say in the coming revamp of the Cabinet? Will his reluctance to "work" with the Senior Deputy Executive Secretary lead to an irreparable rift between the two (with Cardenas remaining as Head Staff Assistant to the President, but eventually "promoted" to Cabinet Secretary in another Department)? How extensive will Angara’s powers be? How will the one-million – hectare food production and agricultural program which promises to create one job per hectare (one million "new" jobs) be funded and implemented – including the vital marketing angele? These are among the questions to be answered at tomorrow’s Forum.
Then there is the so-called "post-acquittal" scenario – if the President is acquitted. And what will happen if he is "convicted"?
Angara, a veteran legislator, who’s also an educator, banker, corporate lawyer (ACCRA), arts patron and "weekend" farmer is, indisputably, the "man of the hour" for the beleaguered Estrada government.
Lawyer Ma. Celia "Macel" Fernandez, 29, is, for her part, one of the youngest to have achieved such high rank in government at such an early age. Born in 1971 in Makati City, she topped the 1997 Bar examinations with the remarkable rating of 90.025 percent. She graduated in Law from the UP, cum laude, as salutatorian of her class in 1997. Previously, though, Atty. Fernandez graduated in 1992, with a BS in Business Economics from the UP, summa cum laude, as valedictorian. That same year, she was honored as the "most Outstanding Graduate of the University of the Philippines."
Angara said that he was the commencement speaker at that graduation in which Fernandez copped top place and a summa cum laude. Although Unilever offered her a position at more than twice the salary the Senate could afford, Ms. Fernandez joined Angara’s Senate staff that year. Two years later, she requested "leave of absence" to take up her law degree in the UP.