Noy wants Palace legal team to improve performance

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino would like to see improvements in the performance of the Office of the Solicitor General and the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel.

Malacañang sources bared this yesterday, saying that the legal team would be the first to be affected by any movement among the President’s officials.

In an earlier interview with ANC’s Strictly Politics, the President bared plans to make changes in his legal team among other positions in his government.

He said his legal team was “being improved also” and when asked if there would be “additions or subtractions,” he replied: “You can say that.”

Palace sources added they did not hear any impending changes on the Cabinet level but only in the line agencies.

The President had said he is still “looking for a lot of talent” and would appoint people for still unfilled positions. He added that those to be replaced or moved had been notified by their superiors.

Aquino admitted he had been pushing the members of his team too hard sometimes.

“I do notice that... I push everybody and keep telling them: ‘you know we have six years to make a difference,’” Aquino said.

“We have four years six months remaining and I want everything done, if possible, yesterday. So I have to balance – that’s one of my New Year’s resolutions: balancing the pushing and pushing them out of government,” he said.

The President said he was aware that some members of his Cabinet came from lucrative private practices and they might leave if he would not stop pushing them to their limits.

He said the likes of Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras and Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson took a drastic cut in pay and benefits and “if they can no longer breathe because I press them too much, we might lose their talents in service of the people.”

He said his communications team, which was being criticized for their “miscommunications” and in-fighting, is “improving also.”

“There are also consultants that we’ve asked (to help)... I’m trying to be reasonable with the expectations. So we want to be transformative and part of the transformative process is not to engage in what you consider the ills of the past dispensation, which means changing the rules of the game. So in the process you mentioned the effectivity also, in a way, I constrained them not to perpetuate that wrong system. Therefore, I have to be reasonable with the expectations or what they can achieve in the transition period from that system to the new,” Aquino said.