What transition government?

Anthony Taberna and Gerry Baja of DZMM’s program, “Dos por Dos” this morning gave us National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales to discuss his proposed transition government which he defines simply as a ‘frame of mind’ (kaisipan) and would not require formal structures to erect. That is as far as the opening statement was made but as soon as Gonzales’ free-wheeling discourse comes to a close, it turns out that it requires in fact, at least two years for the new president to acquaint himself with the workings of the presidency – beyond of course – the mindset he refers to.

Call that convoluted logic, if I may.

Gonzales confessed that he didn’t have that courage to have proposed what he has in mind to PGMA earlier in time but that now, he said he will. He seems to anchor his conclusion from the observations that unless there is a transition government, the corruption that we now experience and the myriad other societal problems we are now faced with – the future will be more of the same. In other words, as soon as possible, the transition government should already be in an active mode so that it makes it much easier to turn over the reigns of government to the new and legitimate holder.

Apparently, the good secretary is himself witness to the dysfunctional attribute of the Arroyo regime in all of those eight years he is part of the official family. Thus, he believes that one should learn from all these weaknesses, these ‘lapses in judgment’ perhaps lest the state of affairs be bound to repeat itself.

Gonzales seems to have lost his inhibitions to criticize the Arroyo government for all the havoc it created in governance.

The proposal is understandably a mere piece of rhetoric – the theory upon which it is built is a vacuum. There is nothing in what the secretary has said that has not been said by any politician a hundred times over. It pretentiously offers a new era of change that abandons old formulae tested to be inapplicable if not entirely useless due to a greed that cannot be moderated. Corruption is bound to repeat itself and unless there is new kind of politics – in both House of Representatives and Senate – there is little hope that progress can come about. Certainly, he thinks that the government may have had awesome amount of money for all conceivable projects had they been properly allocated and strictly implemented.

The good thing about Gonzales is his appreciation that the charter change can no longer be rammed through the people’s throat and that he now looks forward to a new occupant in Malacanang ending for PGMA an entire term of office that is characterized as have buried in unlighted tunnel. For the charter change move to gather adherents, Gonzales shares the view that it must be taken up as a challenge to the new president.

It may be interesting to point out here that it was nonetheless Sec. Gonzalez who signed a million-dollar consultancy contract to retain the services of an American law firm to lobby for charter change in the US government at the same day that PGMA delivers her State of the Nation Address on 25 July 2005 and exhorts Congress “to start the great debate for charter change”. Certainly, $75,000 per month over a period of one year is no peanuts, is it?

As a classic example to what Gonzales is trying to explain, this contract was signed at a time when government reels from a gaping budget deficit and on a belt-tightening mood. Now under his proposal, he wants to suggest of overcoming the errors, mistakes, blunders, lapses that have been encountered by the regime in the past so that if these are not bound to be repeated, it will usher us to a more viable future.

Truth is, PCIJ reported that this has been done in precipitate haste and shrouded in secrecy. Do we now take it to mean that one way or other, Gonzales has learned few lessons in governance that he now wants to correct them? At the very least, that act of Gonzales has nothing to do with his mandate as National Security Adviser. So here we are hearing a man tell us what he believes in – a whole pack of lies – that does not reflect how he performed his office in the past.

How could then he be an authority in what he preaches considering his dubious performance in governance throughout the time PGMA is president? One can wonder now if the stimulus package of Obama for the Philippine veterans could have been part of an earlier work of said consulting firm to lobby for grants or congressional earmarks.

All told, it saddens us to know that we always find people like Gonzales who can float so stupid an idea that he wants us all believe. Sometimes, we can only wonder at the thought that we are paying officials in government to perform below par as Director-General of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency since what he is actually doing is something outside of the mandate of his office. It is hoped the new president will not retain Gonzales in his post since his proposal sounds like a job application.

All told, the proposal is a groove-less act of ‘self-defeating’ confession.

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