It was dismaying to witness our officials squabbling over where the money was, while our OFWs suffer in Lebanon

When La Presidenta met with this writer early yesterday morning, she was dressed in blue but her smile was sunny, and she looked fit as a fiddle.

She put on a white surgical mask, joking that she didn’t want to give me any germs from her trankaso. I think she was afraid, really, of getting microbes from me. In any event, she appeared to have regained what America’s John F. Kennedy used to call in his Irish-Bostonian twang, "vim and vigah."

JFK came from Massachusetts, New England and we used to be amused when he would tell us that "Ameriker" wanted to save "Asier" and "Afriker" – but I must add that we admired him greatly (even after his fabled "Camelot" turned out to be only a Walt Disney version of it, and even as the term’s inventor, Theodore H. White, belatedly and ruefully realized that Jack’s New Frontier paladins were never noble "knights" but hard-nosed politicians and managers.

Every country lives by its myths, and the echoes of those golden trumpets of Kennedy’s Camelot still stir many American hearts – even when they find themselves bogged down in Vietnams and Iraqs and the despairing dilemma of Lebanon. JFK had the grace of eloquence, in the same manner that he had praised Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill, for "mobilizing the English language and sending it into battle."

"Ask not," had he not challenged in his wonderful inaugural address, and it resonates still: "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can for your country."

I was happy to see GMA yesterday, and realize that she had regained her "vigah," after suffering a prolonged bout of high fever, which truly downed her and sent her to St. Luke’s Medical Center, a truly fine hospital (and her favorite repair shop) instead of to our STAR 20th anniversary celebration.

Anniversary parties come and go, but our nation needs a chief executive at its helm who’s small but . . . (not terrible) . . . energetic and determined to do good. Does La Glorietta qualify on the second factor? To be sanguine about it, she wants to do good, but sometimes politics interferes with the determination.

In any event, when I asked the President about her plans, she said she would spend, on doctors’ orders, a lazy weekend "watching movies and DVDs." (Not pirated DVDs, surely).

Foreign trips? None in prospect, she replied – except in September.

GMA will fly to Helsinki (Finland) to chair the ASEAN-European summit there. Since the Philippines assumed the Chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last Friday (July 28th), she reminded me, she will now have to Chair the next ASEAN big deal over there.

She will also host next December’s ASEAN and Dialogue Partners summit here in Cebu, with not only the chiefs or heads of state of the ten ASEAN countries and their ministers coming to the clambake, but possibly, four other heads of state, including perhaps Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Our Foreign Affairs Secretary Bert Romulo was in K.L., of course, to accept the formal turnover of the ASEAN Chairmanship from Malaysia’s Foreign Minister. Even US State Secretary Condoleeza Rice arrived there to participate, direct from frustrating talks in the Middle East and Rome. She’ll be returning to the war-torn Middle East Saturday, arriving in Israel first on the eve concluding the Sabbath. No rest for the weary American State Secretary and diplomat – and no way out for America.

* * *

After I mentioned a few days ago about our Ambassador to Berlin, former acting SECFORAF, Ambassador Delia Albert, hoping to get her dream-post, that of Ambassador to the United Nations, I’ll have to say as a follow-up that Delia’s hopes will have to be put on hold – for a very long time. She’ll remain speaking German for some years to come, a tongue in which, of course, she’s very fluent.

This is because our respected retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., re-nominated by the President to be our Envoy to the UN, is strongly on course, and perhaps stands to be confirmed by the Commission on Appointments very shortly.

Davide, not only an eminent jurist and man of integrity, is also a former politician (one could never guess it) and will be both a brilliant and honorable representative of our Republic in the UN, replacing homecoming Ambassador Lauro Baja.

Incidentally, the biography "DAVIDE" by Dean Tony Tupaz of the College of Law of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, and former Dean of the Law College of the University of the East, a longtime friend and junior associate of the Chief Justice, has become a bestseller. The first edition sold out in three weeks, and a second edition has just come off the press. I’m happy to have shared a tiny portion of that book enterprise by having written the "Foreword" of the volume.

* * *

Yesterday, I had a long talk with the new DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapuz who took over that vital department only last Friday morning (a day of many happenings). When the usual leftist, radical, bigmouthed self-styled "union" leaders threatened to set up a human and physical barricade to prevent Lapuz’s entry into his new DepEd office – imagine that, trying to prevent a minister of the government from occupying his own office! – the Congressman from the 3rd District of Tarlac was unfazed. He had said that he would march direct to his office, and whoever attempted to stop him would be dealt with firmly.

However, Lapuz – a topnotch management expert, and the Miracle Man who had transformed the moribund Land Bank into one of the most powerful and profitable in the nation – was not just a fellow who tramples snakes, but a snake charmer. Last Friday went without a hitch. The radicals, whatever the reason, failed to put up a fight, or any barricade. In the morning, Lapuz met with the Regional Directors from all over the archipelago in the Education building (his own Region 3, by serendipity had already been previously scheduled to host that conference).

In addition, he met and seriously discussed the department’s problems, and the initiatives to be taken with Undersecretary (and former acting Secretary and OIC) Fe Hidalgo. He reported that he and USEC Hidalgo had gotten along swimmingly.

In the evening, he dialogued with the real top Union officials over dinner in the Linden Suites in Ortigas. The site was an excellent choice, since it is both classy and discreet.

In fact he had texted me that night, regretting he could not make it to our 20th STAR anniversary shindig in the Makati Shangri-La Hotel, because he was undergoing, as he described it in his usually witty style, "first day Union blues." It turned out not to be a blues session, but a friendly one instead. Good for Jing Lapuz! His political astuteness – he had run for his current term in the House of Representatives last election without any rival daring to oppose him and had been elected unanimously – stood him in good stead.

Now, naturally, will come the hard part. Unknotting the mess in the DepEd and making sure that next school session there will be enough classrooms, enough good teachers, and the proper curriculum and motivation. A formidable, worse, daunting task for even the former Whiz Kid from AIM and the Wizard of the Land Bank. The DepEd, however, will soon know that the Eagle has landed – actually, Lapuz may have taught for years in the Ateneo, and other elite schools, but he came from the huge Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) of which state university it could be remarked, none could have been more public. How about that for egalitarianism in his background? (He was, as always, a topnotcher).

Lapuz will be formally sworn into office next Tuesday by the President at the Cabinet Meeting in Malacañang.

I asked him whether he had noticed (and been discouraged) that in her State of the Union Address (SONA) last Monday, La Emperadora had been upbeat about super-projects, but had never – unless I misheard – mentioned "Education." Jing replied that he had been tasked by GMA to do something about it pronto, so without speechifying, Education was in her shortlist of urgent priorities. We’ll soon see.

Yet, the decrepit state of our Department of Education’s headquarters building speaks volumes about government attitude, towards this vital endeavor. Lapuz admitted to me that he had found the DepEd Secretary’s office musty, old-fashioned and badly-furnitured. Oh well. That sums up our approach to Education entirely.

Get to work, Jing! And sweep those cobwebs out – especially the cobwebs in the thinking of the bureaucrats and may I add some USECs who operate in the matrix of that hoary, limping institution.

* * *

Several politicians are trying to pressure GMA into extending the tenure of the retiring Chairman of the essential Commission on Higher Education (CHED) – the body which governs universities and all major colleges in the country. The fact is that CHED’s Chairman Carlito Puno is retiring this month – and I submit he be allowed to go off into the sunset to pursue his favorite hobbies, rather than saddle CHED with another tenure from the gentleman.

I had praised Mr. Puno once, but subsequently discovered that in his lack of determination and strength of will, he had been a marshmallow in the hands of belligerent Congressmen and other top provincial officials. Congressmen (and a Senator or two) always insist on making even substandard schools in their bailiwicks "state universities" when some of those could not even qualify to be vocational schools.

Having a "state university", our politicos fondly believe, gives their provinces prestige – and besides, many of the beneficiaries are allegedly owned by friends, or relatives, or even, in the reductio ad verum, by themselves. What a blow to education it has been to have the status of "state university" (plus taxpayers’ subsidy) being conferred on undeserving mockeries of educational institutions. No wonder the outside world is beginning to despise our college graduates, regarding their diplomas as not much more valuable – even less valuable, one might even say – than toilet paper.

How many dozens of such fakes have been bestowed such status – one might inquire? I think the best and least painful course for the President to undertake is to release Puno from his problems, and get him to exit into happy retirement.

* * *

Our Ambassador to Beirut, Al Francis Bichara was rightly compelled to apologize to our government for having raised a loud verbal stink about "where the money" was with which to aid and help repatriate most of our 30,000 unfortunate OFWs, stranded as forlorn and fearful refugees in Lebanon – while Hezbollah rockets whizz over their heads and Israeli F-16s and helicopter gunships bomb and rocket targets all around them. Those vivid TV images of our Filipino workers, abandoned by everyone, sleeping miserably on the ground, or weeping at the corner of the Church of the Miraculous Medal, one of their places of refuge – running out of foods and water – should be a stab-in-the-eye to the conscience of the GMA Administration.

It developed, after Bichara had shouted to the four winds, and condemned the OWWA, the DOLE and the DFA, that most of the money had been stored in his own Embassy! His statements had discomfited the government, panicked the anxious families and relatives of the pathetically-displaced OFWs and caused embarrassment – and his lame excuse was that his own staff had misinformed him.

The trouble with our friend Bichara, a former Governor of Albay (of Lebanese ancestry) is probably that he forgets he is no longer a politician, entitled to express the most bizarre opinions and sling accusations right and left, but hasn’t fully realized that as an Ambassador, he is in charge of all the Filipinos within his designated country of assignment – including their welfare and morale.

There is a kernel of truth, however, in the insinuation that the money budgeted – but not assigned – is not being properly applied to the crisis. The much-publicized arrivals of OFWs, plucked from danger, via Syria and Dubai, represent only a trickle. A few hundreds rescued and repatriated don’t put a dent in the 30,000 still huddled in despair in the war zone. The effort must go faster, and be more aggressive.

Admittedly, getting evacuees and refugees to travel even within Lebanon is a terrible undertaking – with roads and bridges destroyed by dozens of daily Israeli air-strikes, which reduce buildings into rubble because the Hezbollah "guerrillas" have been firing missiles at Haifa, Northern Israel and targets further south, from in between them.

Lebanon has become a shooting gallery and everybody on the ground moving targets.

But try we must, above and beyond all ordinary effort to get our people out to safety!