Infinity wars local version
Even before everybody has seen “Infinity Wars” featuring the Marvel Bunch, Filipinos may soon be watching and reading about the local political version. This one has the makings of a battle of Davao versus Davao and DOT versus DOT and unless the President steps in, it will be unending as the word infinity suggests.
Word is, the battle lines are drawn, but unlike the Marvel bunch the people from DOT are not coming together to fight a common enemy, they are all up against each other, depending on who gave them their appointment. One DOT official is reportedly busy looking for more dirt against Wanda Teo et al, conveniently forgetting that he too has skeletons in the closet and was once targeted for his media links and placements. It seems the official has not been shy about wanting to be the next Secretary of Tourism and people at the DOT are now commenting that if that happens, it will simply be a rotation of Duterte supporters playing “Larong Buko” or basketball with a coconut.
“They already smell blood and want Wanda’s job,” says another official.
Apparently some people believe that to be the case, with the President calling for a probe into the allegations that DOT money was used to buy airtime on a TV program of the Tulfo brothers. The sad part about all of this is that “innocent bystanders” or career people at the DOT are getting dragged, accused, or targeted by paranoid officials or ambitious underlings who want to get senior level posts if change does come.
On the other hand it seems that Secretary Teo has been fed “Fake News” and has been made to believe that one Undersecretary and one Asec/Director are Anti-Teo or “unfaithful.” Those officials soon found out that they were being considered for “transfer” or “re-assignment” where they could do a better job. That’s all been put on hold and rightly so because other people simply wanted their positions and needed to get rid of them first!
If the President does end up having to bring change to the DOT, PRRD should make sure that the change includes the removal of all recent political appointees through courtesy resignation as well as actual nonperforming assets or officials from administrations past. One of the biggest headaches and real obstacles faced by Secretary Teo has to do with other political appointees to the DOT who have no respect, fear or inclination to follow Teo or be a team player. The second major – major problem in today’s DOT is the fact that many or MAJORITY of those appointees to the DOT are inexperienced, ignorant, and have no real executive or management skills to bring to the table except for their political backer.
Last but not the least, whoever heads the DOT should be politically color blind. According to people on the ground, the newcomers into the DOT have looked down or isolated “the yellows” within without recognizing the fact that it was during the Aquino administration that Tourism was made a “flagship program” of government. Secretary Mon Jimenez and his team, some of whom are still at the DOT as career officers, made that contribution and it should not be wasted or dishonored because of political prejudice.
If at the end of the day Secretary Teo ends up becoming a victim of circumstance, or “A series of unfortunate events,” she would be better off looking at it as a blessing in disguise. I remember the great talk show host Larry King once saying: “when the people you work end up no longer being fun to work with, you know it’s time to go.” When a Cabinet Secretary can’t even get to pick her own team because of the amount of political appointees she came in with, you know that: “Its Not Fun at the DOT.” I TOLD YOU SO. When Solicitor General Jose Calida filed the Quo Warranto complaint against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, I wrote a somewhat prophetic piece where I warned SolGen Calida that his initiative may have effectively exposed the Supreme Court to perpetual nuisance and legal action because now, you don’t have to go to Congress to impeach or harass a Justice of the Supreme Court, you simply file for Quo Warranto. I also wrote that chances are the next candidate would be Justice Teresita De Castro.
Well it finally happened but with a twist. SolGen Calida thumbed down the complaint filed by the Coalition For Justice or CFI citing lack of evidence. As a result, the CFI is now calling for the resignation of Calida for exercising “selective justice.” The next question is: will they soon be filing a case with the Office of the Ombudsman? I’m sure that lawyers and law professors enjoy reading and following all of these legal developments, but can we as a nation and our Justice system afford this?
* * * Speaking of the Office of the Ombudsman, I have been learning and hearing of several incidents where wicked individuals in government or forced out of government have been incorporating or “using” the Ombudsman as part of their demolition tactics against other officials in government in order to get them suspended, distracted, harassed, or look bad with the Office of the President in order to steal the job from under them.
It seems that part of their tactics is to file nuisance complaints with the Office of the Ombudsman and then give this out to the Media and Malacañang. Good or bad, I think it’s about time that the Office of the Ombudsman makes it punishable for a complainant to file nuisance or demolition jobs in court. The Ombudsman should also announce to the world whenever they catch such wicked people to put a stop to these dirty tactics of character assassination. Email: utalk2ctalk@gmail.com