This is our national security adviser?

I watched National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales squirming before Senator Joker Arroyo’s blue ribbon committee, and all I can say is that it is always a painful experience to watch a man being torn to shreds. Mercifully, the futile exercise was suspended after he pleaded health problems. Nevertheless, he was cited for contempt and detained at the Senate for refusing to provide certain basic information.

As the country watched this sorry performance, he continued to burn himself on the stake of his own inconsistencies, ignorance and inherently incredible assertions. His self-immolation was complete and irreversible.

His very visible collapse, on live national and international television courtesy of the ABS-CBN News Channel, put squarely in issue whether Gonzales has the basic intellectual fitness, mental capacity and sense of judgment to continue serving in such a critical and sensitive position as a security adviser to the President of the Philippines.

At the same time, his very appointment to this position, over other more qualified and available people at the time (such as then recently-retired Armed Forces chief of staff Narcing Abaya, a West Point graduate and accomplished field commander and Mindanao veteran) also put in question the judgment of the President herself.

Was the appointment of Gonzales another lapse of judgment on GMA’s part? Should she now also apologize to the people for entrusting the security of this nation to such a fuzzy thinker, sloppy implementor and inarticulate dissembler as Gonzales?

In trying to put some distance between her and Gonzales, without really disclaiming the Venable LLP contract, GMA justified contracts with US lobbyists in general but said that the provision on US government funding for charter change in the Venable contract had become "unnecessarily controversial." While ordering the cancellation of that contract, she insisted it would be "reviewed," and kept open the possibility that the deal would be revived.

She admitted that Cabinet officials are allowed to enter into lobbying contracts like this, but made clear that these officials would be "answerable" for any irregularity or legal infirmity. The implication is that throwing the erring Cabinet official to the Senate or House dogs is a sufficient washing of her hands which thereby relieves her of all responsibility for the said error.

But last time I checked the Constitution, it still said that "executive power shall be vested in the President of the Philippines." (Art. VII, Sec. 1) In his book on the 1987 Constitution, Father Joaquin Bernas pointed out (at p. 808) that although the members of the Cabinet are "the principal officers through whom the President executes the law," the President "remains the chief of administration" and "Cabinet members as individuals and the Cabinet as institution possess no authority over the President."

Thus, whether she delegates power or not, she remains responsible. Whether she gives Cabinet members the broadest leeway or puts them in a tight straightjacket, she remains responsible, and "answerable," under the Constitution. Fr. Bernas notes that the Cabinet itself is "extra-constitutionally created." Clearly then, whatever fault, transgression or shortcoming is attributable to Secretary Norberto Gonzales can also be laid right at the doorstep of President GMA.

The net result of Gonzales’ hemming and hawing is that a yawning, gaping factual hole has been left wide open. His refusal to provide even the most basic information makes possible the inference that there is something more to this contract than was at first evident. Thus, the "private" donations that funded the Venable contract may be coming from official confidential or intelligence funds, or otherwise illicit and even criminal sources.

In addition, the President may have indeed authorized the contract. Initial contacts with the Venable law firm may have been established through questionable channels. The contract may have invited foreign interference in the process and eventual outcome of the effort to amend the Constitution. The Secretary himself may have compromised national sovereignty and security through this so-called lobbying deal.

If none of this is true, Secretary Gonzales could have negated these conclusions and inferences by providing the facts. In fact, he might have avoided this hearing at the Senate entirely, if he had but come clean with the information in the first place.

The hearing was stalled on fundamental facts: Who authorized the Secretary to sign the contact "For the Philippine Government"? Did the President authorize it? Was the contract price to be paid with intelligence or confidential funds of the Office of the President? If not, who were the "private donors" who would pay the law firm’s fees?

Was the fee for the first three months, amounting to about $225,000, actually paid? Is the contract thus effective already? Was the contract actually cancelled, in accordance with Presidential instructions? Was the cancellation effected in compliance with the contract’s termination provisions, assuming it has already come into effect?

There are those I am sure who will say that the Senate is making a mountain out of a molehill by crucifying Secretary Gonzales. I disagree. If any mountain has been artificially constructed here, it was all done by Gonzales himself.

Let’s cite just two of his glaring inconsistencies: First, he said the President knew about the lobbying contract and authorized it. Then he shifted gears and reportedly "cleared" her by claiming she didn’t know anything about it. Before the Senate he was totally unintelligible on this simple question, actually the first thrown at him.

He is positive the contract was paid for by private donors, but he doesn’t know whether they actually paid Venable anything. Much less is he willing to disclose who these private donors are, how they were "recruited," who convinced them to step up to bat, and other such important details. But he doesn’t claim that revealing the names of the donors in any way compromises national security, thus rendering his reticence incomprehensible.

As long as the National Security Adviser stonewalls on a lobbying contract that may arguably be a pretty routine engagement, the more he encourages speculation about the true circumstances surrounding the contract, as well as his own, and the President’s, complicity in a mysterious and possibly questionable deal.

If there is really "nothing wrong" about the Venable contract, as some indubitably loyal but essentially clueless Cabinet members assert, there is no rhyme or reason to Gonzales’ exceedingly tight lips.