Cabinet changes

Another Cory loyalist is out of the Cabinet. And while Jose “Ping” de Jesus’ affiliation with the Palace power blocs isn’t too clear, this latest round is seen to go to the “Balay” group.

The word yesterday was that De Jesus might even be replaced by the head of the Balay bloc himself, Mar Roxas, although Mar reportedly turned it down.

De Jesus’ departure (effective July 1) from the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), one of the largest executive departments, seems to resemble that of the other Coryista Alberto Romulo from the Department of Foreign Affairs: both were made to realize that P-Noy wouldn’t mind having their resignation letters on his desk.

Or at least this is what we surmise from the initial reactions to the rumors of the resignation, from De Jesus himself (“not true,” he texted one of our editors), and from his undersecretary at the DOTC.

Among Palace denizens, one waited the whole day Tuesday for a comment from President Aquino to confirm the reports. On the other hand, another said the resignation was “not farfetched” and P-Noy was dissatisfied with De Jesus’ performance.

It’s lonely at the top, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo once told us. No chief executive since P-Noy’s mom Cory Aquino has managed to fire or let go of friends smoothly.

At the start of his term, P-Noy could afford to hang on to his friends, hesitating to impose even a slap on the wrist on those that the Department of Justice deemed liable for the hostage mess in Rizal Park last year.

With his first anniversary in power approaching and his performance rating in decline, P-Noy can no longer shield his friends from the consequences of their actions and omissions. With palpable regret, he let go of Ernesto Diokno as prisons chief.

Now P-Noy is shaking up his Cabinet, although it isn’t unexpected. Some of his appointees at the start of his term knew they were good for only a year, after which new faces led by Roxas would come in.

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A reliable source told me Roxas is having second thoughts about working at the Palace. He’s supposed to be P-Noy’s chief of staff, but this is an existing position at Malacañang whose functions are somewhat different from what Roxas has in mind.

So even Mar’s prospective job title is a work in progress, still being conceptualized together with the head of that other Palace power bloc, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.

The sniping from the Palace snake pit is that this is going to be a hard slog because the job Mar really wants is already taken - by P-Noy.

The Balay camp already has most of the executive departments, including the Department of Budget and Management, which controls the purse strings. But sources say the Balay camp sees Ochoa’s “Samar” bloc still in control at the Office of the President itself.

Probably reinforcing the perception is the fact that Ochoa is the only Cabinet member whose office is at the Premier Guest House where P-Noy holds office.

Will Mar get himself a room in the same building? In the corridors of power, the one who enjoys constant physical proximity to the boss can have the loudest bulong power.

Ping de Jesus is too soft-spoken for power play.

Having been the son of a president, P-Noy isn’t new to this game. It’s not farfetched to think that he’s playing off one power bloc against the other. Or put another way, balancing competing interests to serve his objectives, the way he’s doing in the case of China and the United States.

The public is also used to these wars at Malacañang. Regardless of which faction emerges at the top, people are interested only in the results.

Whoever P-Noy brings into his team in his second year, it should lead to better public service.

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WAITING FOR A ROAD: Ping de Jesus preferred to work quietly, so maybe it’s not good to keep too low a profile in this administration.

Another Cabinet member who needs to raise his profile a bit more, especially because his job description entails a lot of gung-ho marketing, is Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim.

Bertie, plucked by P-Noy from the private sector, seems to have been spooked by the furor over the tourism logo copied from Poland. He shouldn’t be.

At the start of his term, Bertie Lim told us he wanted to focus on developing tourism infrastructure before selling the country’s tourism potentials. He might want to take a look at Luzon’s eastern seaboard.

A doctor who owns a resort in Quezon, Teodulo Velasco Aranda, wrote to prod the government to make the Marcos-era Marikina-Infanta Road, now in a bad state of disrepair, passable.

Aranda, reacting to one of my articles, wrote that his eponymous beach resort covers a 28-hectare area with a lagoon on Baluti Island, 1.2 kilometers across the bay from picturesque Real town in Quezon.

Baluti offers spectacular views of Lamon Bay and the Sierra Madre on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

The Marikina-Infanta Road will cut travel to Real by about 90 kilometers. Better travel access can spur tourism and boost economic activities along Southern Tagalog’s eastern seaboard.

“(It) will help us a lot economically. We can create jobs,” Aranda wrote.

This part of Luzon, so near to Metro Manila but made far by the absence of a shorter road network, has a lot of tourism possibilities.

Upgrading and completion of the Marikina-Infanta Road is under the Department of Public Works and Highways, and workers may require protection from state forces because the neglected area is home to communist rebels. But Bertie Lim can serve as catalyst to get things moving.

He will have to make sure such initiatives will not get bogged down in power play at Malacañang.