Feliz Año Nuevo

Professor Clarita Carlos has always been a square peg in a round hole, so to speak, as National Security Adviser. A brilliant academician, she got the attention of a lot of people (and evidently then-candidate

Marcos) during the Deep Probe Presidential Debates, a slickly-produced production of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy’s Sonshine Media Network International. It was the only debate series that Marcos attended, shunning other media outlets for supposedly being prejudiced against him.

There Prof. Carlos reigned supreme, showing (off) her extensive knowledge of international law and politics in her interpellations of the candidates, and none-too-subtly expressing her approbation of Marcos’ responses. Incidentally, the widely-perceived fairness in the conduct of the debates, combined with the vast viewership thereof, catapulted SMNI, almost overnight, into one of the country’s most trusted media groups, a definite slap on the face of its arch-nemesis Rappler.

It must have been Carlos’ impressive showing on SMNI that placed her on top of the new President’s mind when he was looking for a new adviser to the National Security Council, an agency of paramount importance as it advises the Chief Executive on matters of both national security and its relationship to foreign policy. Underscoring its primacy in security matters is the fact that it is chaired by no less than the President of the Republic.

It must have taken all of three minutes from the time she assumed office for Carlos to realize that, when pure theory meets actual practice, pandemonium will ensue. This is specially true in an office that already had a set culture gained through years of consistently performing the same task. The NSC is mandated by law to be the vanguard in the defense of the Republic, and that includes setting the pace of the anti-insurgency campaign. In the absence of any real external threats, and with the creation by President Duterte of the National Task Force to Local Communist Armed Conflict — prescribing a “whole of nation approach” against the communist rebels — the role of the NSC (and concomitantly the Adviser) has been greatly amplified.

The role of National Security Adviser has traditionally been held by former highranking military commanders, and we see stellar names such as Generals Hermogenes Ebdane, Jose Almonte, Hermogenes Esperon and

Ramon Montano in its roster of previous officer holders. That is as it should be, for common sense dictates that for one to advise on security matters, one must have not only knowledge but experience in executing actions dealing with the security of the country. Witness the one fluke in Cory Aquino’s appointment of a technocrat, Noel Soriano, as NSA when in 1987, he cavalierly dismissed rumors of a coup in his irritating faux British accent, only to be faced with a serious anti-Cory military action by Col. Honasan and company a few days after that took American air power to quell.

The success of the NSC under Duterte in bringing the local armed communists to their knees is truly a tough act to follow. The entry of Carlos provided a sharp contrast to the previous NSA, as Carlos was seen by many to be too sympathetic to her leftist colleagues in the University of the Philippines academe, dismissive of hard-line anti-insurgents in the police and military, and in general too indecisive on urgent matters and prone to analysis paralysis. As a friend in the NSC once told me after a lengthy meeting with Carlos, “when all is said and done, much was said but nothing was done.”

The appointment of former General Eduardo Año, of late Secretary of the Interior under Duterte, vice Carlos is thus a welcome development as it puts the NSC and, by extension the NTF-ELCAC, back on the track of its previous effective direction. Coming halfway into the first month of 2023, it is still cause to exclaim Happy New Year! Or in Spanish, “Feliz Año Nuevo!”

The success of the NSC under Duterte in bringing the local armed communists to their knees is truly a tough act to follow.

It must have taken all of three minutes from the time she assumed office for Carlos to realize that, when pure theory meets actual practice, pandemonium will ensue.