I just read another news article last week about CHED (or former, I am not sure) chairman Romulo Neri. Apparently GMA has appointed him as the new Social Security System president, replacing Corazon dela Paz. As I was reading the article different, initially malicious, opinions came running through my mind. The name of Mr. Neri was after all a source of headline worthy news during the Lozada, Truth, and ZTE-NBN festival. And even though I was in Cagayan de Oro and missing out on all the “truth” parade in Manila, being updated was a sort of a hobby for me back there. And so I can’t help but attach the ZTE-NBN controversy to the face of Mr. Neri (well that’s the malicious part). However I also pondered on the other side, personality effaced, objective perspective on the issue. There is something politically disturbing about him taking on the as SSS head.
Well the good news is, vehemently speaking, I think Romulo Neri is a man of innumerable credentials for the job of being the new SSS president. He graduated Magna cum Laude in a Business and Finance degree at UP. He held countless positions like chair of National Economic Development Authority Achievements (NEDA). He was also former secretary of Department of Budget and Management (I didn’t know there was such). Ultimately having headed different executive positions in his field of expertise Mr. Neri is, professionally speaking fit to run SSS.
However there is one peculiar character of Mr. Neri that is of a particular interest to me as a Pol Sci Major (naks). If we go back to the ZTE NBN issue, it was not his testimony that made him a “star”. It was actually the opposite; it was his having “no testimony” at all that media and his fan club, the senate that made a frenzy of issue out of him. Sure he did mention some dealings with former COMELEC Benjamin Abalos, he did not give any substancial, juicy, information about the controversial contract itself. It all boil down, or should I say “out”, to him invoking executive privilege. And there was silence…
Now what can we see here? SSS is a public institution, it is owned by the government, and hence it answers to the public. His position is also that of a public official, even though SSS is a government owned corporation. And I think his knack for keeping mum over issues that concern the good of the public and quelling initiations for questions of accountability is a detriment to the our democratic way of governance and it questions and weaken the integrity of the government. For a public official to say that there is nothing to talk about, by invoking executive privilege, tells something about that official’s character as a public servant, moreover it tells something even disturbing about the character of the one who appointed him. The danger posted by this thought is that the check and a balance that enables our democratic system to function is compromised thereby turning our system of governance a joke, us insulted in the process.
I have other, more malicious opinions, on Mr. Neri’s appointment but that’s for another entry if I have time. Or if the issue is still hot. :)
Politics is public. Bow
Phillip Don Recentes
AB political Science
Sorry for grammatical errors. :)
Credit to
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/61990/Romulo-L-Neri
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Philippine Star
My Pos100 teacher for enriching my thoughts on this issue.
Well the good news is, vehemently speaking, I think Romulo Neri is a man of innumerable credentials for the job of being the new SSS president. He graduated Magna cum Laude in a Business and Finance degree at UP. He held countless positions like chair of National Economic Development Authority Achievements (NEDA). He was also former secretary of Department of Budget and Management (I didn’t know there was such). Ultimately having headed different executive positions in his field of expertise Mr. Neri is, professionally speaking fit to run SSS.
However there is one peculiar character of Mr. Neri that is of a particular interest to me as a Pol Sci Major (naks). If we go back to the ZTE NBN issue, it was not his testimony that made him a “star”. It was actually the opposite; it was his having “no testimony” at all that media and his fan club, the senate that made a frenzy of issue out of him. Sure he did mention some dealings with former COMELEC Benjamin Abalos, he did not give any substancial, juicy, information about the controversial contract itself. It all boil down, or should I say “out”, to him invoking executive privilege. And there was silence…
Now what can we see here? SSS is a public institution, it is owned by the government, and hence it answers to the public. His position is also that of a public official, even though SSS is a government owned corporation. And I think his knack for keeping mum over issues that concern the good of the public and quelling initiations for questions of accountability is a detriment to the our democratic way of governance and it questions and weaken the integrity of the government. For a public official to say that there is nothing to talk about, by invoking executive privilege, tells something about that official’s character as a public servant, moreover it tells something even disturbing about the character of the one who appointed him. The danger posted by this thought is that the check and a balance that enables our democratic system to function is compromised thereby turning our system of governance a joke, us insulted in the process.
I have other, more malicious opinions, on Mr. Neri’s appointment but that’s for another entry if I have time. Or if the issue is still hot. :)
Politics is public. Bow
Phillip Don Recentes
AB political Science
Sorry for grammatical errors. :)
Credit to
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/61990/Romulo-L-Neri
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Philippine Star
4 comments:
"The danger posted by this thought is that the check and a balance that enables our democratic system to function is compromised thereby turning our system of governance a joke, us insulted in the process."
But isn't the very essence of governing a joke? might we, in trying our best not to make things look like a joke, be actually contributing to the validation and legitimization of governance-as-not-a-joke-when-in-fact-it-is-a-joke?
hehehe ;)
I was lost on that last part, hehe. I would like to know more about what you mean by validation and legitimization og governance as .....joke.
Though I said that to express how governance would look like if it is steered the wrong way around. But in saying that governance in essence is a joke that might be becuase it is really just a concept that we believe to be working for us. Like jokes, which are made-up ideas that tickle for a reaction. However the difference is that jokes are meant to just pass for good times sake. Governance it is serious, for lack of a better term right now, business ( i know you are allergic to the word). It deals with tangible realities (again for a lack of a better term). I think it should stand that one requirement of public officials is the stomach for pateince and "yung medyo machismis din". Silence to hide public information defeats public governance.
i think what i meant about governance being a joke is that it's not supposed to be taken seriously, and by that, as a natural given, as Real. sometimes we are deluded that once we reach that ideal state where our officials are really governing and efficient in doing so, we, like the observers of Plato's Kallipolis, are confronted by the reality that the ideal leader is one big joke we all have to live with. you know what i like about jokes? it's their utter dependence on the reciprocal understanding and the slyness in which jokes reverse social realities by intimately weaving the participants in the joke with an affair that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them.
RR i think to conclude that we should not take our government as a natural given, as REAL is an assumption to which I submit myself because it is a "creation". Our government is after all a product of conscious effort to create something that aims to benefit the common.
However I maintain that government is not to be taken as a joke and to be merely reduced to a reciprocal deceiving activity. Moreover it is more than just a spectacle to be wacthed w/ a pop corn in one hand and two coke zero's on the other. Because it involves naturally given human lives. And although government and governance in essence (i finally was able to sink that idea in) is similar to a joke (structure wise) it does affect us emotionally, financially, and all other lys.
I don't jokes make us worry about our futures the way government and governance does.
phillip
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