How the Cabinet reacts to crisis

Crisis, they say, brings out the best or the worst in man.

The best that Foreign Sec. Blas Ople could do, when Australia, Canada and the European Commission closed their embassies Thursday, was to call their envoys to a merienda cena. The sudden shutdown was a slap to the Philippines. The embassies did not bother to inform Ople about it, just that they were responding to "location-specific, date-specific" notice of terrorist attacks. Australia even had the temerity to exhort its citizens to leave Manila because of civil disorder. But emerging from what reporters thought was a well-deserved tongue-lashing from Ople, the best that he could say was that they couldn’t tell him when they would reopen.

Perhaps it was because of what militants cry is the Administration’s penchant for kowtowing to foreign powers. Or it could be that the once fiery ultranationalist, who used to punch Caucasians in the face for the heck of it, has mellowed. Or maybe it was because word of impending firings had spread to Cabinet members earlier that day. For, Executive Sec. Bert Romulo had put his arm around condemned Environment Sec. Sonny Alvarez after their regular weekly meeting, for a "man-to-man talk" in his office. Whatever, Ople’s meek reaction to the national blackeye that the three embassies gave somehow shows how the Cabinet reacts to crisis.

Days later, the brag of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, that he’ll stage pre-emptive strikes on terrorist cells in neighboring Southeast Asia, would require harsh rebuke. For it would infringe on the sovereignty of independent and thinking states. Besides, Howard was clearly turning paranoid, thinking that Australians are prime targets of Islamic extremists when Bali bomber Amrozi already confessed that he thought he would kill nightclubbing Americans. Diplomatically speaking all too softly while trying to stay aloft with a small stick, the best that Ople could say was that "the proposal seems very hasty, exuberant and somewhat bizarre."

Don’t get him wrong, though. Ople did bare his fangs – at Filipinos, the members of the Philippine Travel Agencies Association who said they had heard about more embassies planning to shut down. For spreading that lie, Ople gnarled, he’ll have their business licenses cancelled. He added that he’ll ask Tourism Sec. Richard Gordon to do it for him.

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Over at the finance department, things are suddenly on the move. Sec. Jose Isidro Camacho has given the Internal Revenue and Customs chiefs two weeks to submit lists of officers who didn’t meet their collection quotas. "Surely, some people should be (held) accountable," Camacho said. "They should start paying attention to performance, and they must know that there are consequences for their actions."

Now he’s talking, albeit too late. Camacho should have struck way back in June, when the budget deficit hit the P130 billion programmed for the whole year. At that time, the BIR and Customs were P33.5 billion and

P9.11 billion short of their respective collection targets. Yet Camacho was blaming the low revenue take on a supposed good economic performance. The Administration ably kept inflation so low, he claimed, that taxes on interests also fell. "Really?" the Economist sneered, liquor and cigarette sales have doubled but taxes are down 20 percent. Camacho kept advising President Gloira Arroyo, too, to give the BIR chief time to prove himself. Mrs. Arroyo didn’t have the patience, however, and sacked the guy, who promptly cried sabotage in deliberately low collections. The new BIR chief consequently sued managers from two banks for stealing hundreds of millions of pesos in tax payments, and sent out demand letters to 10,000 taxpayers who underdeclared their value-added tax dues.

Of late, businessmen are murmuring that maybe Camacho is the problem. As the budget deficit grows by tens of billions more each month, the best solution he can offer is to also borrow more or float new bonds. So much so that an exasperated Sen. Ralph Recto has taken to calling him James Bond.

Mrs. Arroyo hasn’t come around to it, but Administration officials are beginning to think that Camacho must go. He did offer to leave last month, when Senate President Franklin Drilon urged the Cabinet to submit courtesy resignations. But the international banking community reportedly reacted with apprehension. Why wouldn’t they? Those foreign bankers are the first beneficiaries of Camacho’s borrowing spree.

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And because it’s firing time at the Cabinet, members are frantically trying to show loyalty to the President. Press Sec. Ignacio Bunye, for one, has been sniping at dismissed Sonny Alvarez and wife Cecille Guidote to prove he cares.

"Doesn’t she know that it’s the President’s prerogative to replace any Cabinet member anytime?" Bunye snapped at Cecille through a reporter of a paper that has declared itself pro-Opposition. He didn’t know it was all a setup. The paper had earlier asked Cecille if she felt bad about the Saturday sacking. Yes, she said reluctantly, because it meant her husband would not be able to finish the reforms he started. The paper ran a front-page story that Cecille was mad at the President, and then asked Bunye for a reaction.

Crisis can give Palace officials a siege mentality. And Bunye must have thought he was under siege by the Alvarezes. The same paper had asked Sonny if it was true that presidential adviser Vicky Garchitorena, who once worked for the Ayala Group, was responsible for his dismissal. Sonny mumbled something about his having to ward off vested interests while in office. The next day, the paper had him saying the Ayalas did him in. While Sonny angrily was denying having said such thing, Bunye was twitting: "The Alvarezes should learn to move on."

The least Bunye could have done was call Cecille and Sonny to ask if what they were quoted to have said was true. More so since the paper has a reputation for sabong (cockfight) journalism. But then, it’s crisis time.

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About those vested interests, Sen. Jun Magsaysay said they’re the groups that get mad when the environment secretary does his job. So the mettle of Alvarez’s replacement, Elisea Gozun, will soon be tested.

Gozun has said she will succumb to no pressure, and will leave the moment she feels her principles being compromised. Talk, clearly unfair, is that if Gozun breezes through the Commission on Appointments, she would have struck compromises with three congressmen. One heads the lobby to rescind Alvarez’s order defining municipal waters, from which big commercial fishers are banned, as 15 kms from the farthest island. Another wants a recall of Alvarez’s designation of an 8,000-ha ecozone in the Mt. Diwalwal goldrush, which overlaps with the forest concession of a big paper mill. The third just wants his son reinstated at the environment office despite criminal charges for abetting the technical smuggling of harmful chemicals during the term of Joseph Estrada.

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