Civil disservice

Qualification-wise, Cabinet Secretary Ricardo L. Saludo can really be appointed as Chairman of the Civil Service Commission. The Constitution merely requires an appointee to the said position to be “a natural born citizen, at least thirty five years of age, with proven capacity for public administration, and must not have been a candidate for any elective position in the elections immediately preceding their appointment” (Article IX B Section 1 [1[). Saludo appears to possess all these qualifications.

But in the best interest of public service, appointment to such an important position must go beyond meeting the minimum qualifications. To be sure, in making appointments to any public office, the appointing power should also consider the Constitutional precept that “public officers must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice and lead modest lives” (Article XI Section 1).

With more reason should this Constitutional mandate apply to a Constitutional Office where Saludo was appointed because it serves as the central personnel agency of the Government and administers the entire civil service embracing “all branches, subdivisions, instrumentalities and agencies of the Government, including government owned and controlled corporations with original charters” (Article IX B Sections 2 [1] and 3).

This Civil Service Commission to be headed by Saludo is primarily tasked to “establish a career service and adopt measures to promote morale, efficiency, integrity, responsiveness, progressiveness and courtesy in the civil service” as well as to “strengthen the merit and reward system, integrate all human resources development programs for all levels and ranks, and institutionalize a management climate conducive to public accountability” (Article IX B Section 3).

Unfortunately, Saludo simply does not inspire belief that he will be up to the tasks. Even before he assumes office people are already raising a lot of questions about the propriety of his appointment to this position.

The main criteria for appointments in the civil service are merit and fitness except in positions that are policy determining, primarily confidential and highly technical. Such criteria should first of all be applied to no less than the chief of the office that administers the civil service who in this case is Saludo. He may be fit, but does he deserve the position?

Before 2002, Saludo’s record of public service is unknown. A lot of Filipinos thought that his stint in the government started only in 2002 when he became the Cabinet Secretary, a position that does not require too much public exposure. Indeed Secretaries usually stay in the background and do their chores quietly.

But in the case of Saludo, the opposite is true. He is the only Cabinet Secretary who is all over the place taking up the cudgels and even doing the job of the Press Secretary dousing the fire and controlling the damage whenever the President is under destabilizing attacks for anomalies and wrongdoings. There is nothing wrong about that. Indeed all the Presidents’ men are duty bound to defend their boss.

Defending your boss in the Government however should be done with explanations that are proper and credible. Sad to say however, Saludo’s defense of his boss in Malacañang sometimes insults the intelligence of the ordinary Pinoy and only betrays his blind loyalty to the Malacañang occupant. Among the Presidents’ men, Saludo indeed stands out as one of the smartest, most articulate and rabid apologists of the President. The public perception is that right or wrong, he will defend the Malacañang occupant.

Hence Saludo’s appointment as Chairman of the Civil Service Commission inevitably raises a lot of skeptical eyebrows; that it is another political appointment, a reward for standing by the President through thick and thin; that blind loyalty more than merit and fitness is the main criterion used in choosing him as Chairman of the CSC.

Saludo has been in Malacañang since 2002. He must know quite well that Malacañang is the number one government agency with the biggest number of undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, advisers, assistants and consultants in excess of the limit set by law. He knows that most of these personnel are political appointees and without civil service eligibilities. Yet he has never questioned or pointed this out as Cabinet Secretary. There was even an interview where he defended such anomaly after his predecessor revealed the high percentage of presidential appointees and excessive number of officials that is “messing up the bureaucracy”.

It cannot be helped therefore if people continue to entertain the thought that he will serve with loyalty not them but the Malacañang occupant and that he was placed at the helm of the CSC to maintain the status quo at least until 2010. They can only hope that if Saludo will be confirmed by the Commission on Appointments, he will become more “independent” after his boss leaves Malacañang in 2010.

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