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Usurping congressional power

EDITORIAL
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08/11/2010

Noynoy Aquino’s executive orders (EOs), being issued one after the other, in all likelihood, are, at best infirm, and at worst, illegal and unconstitutional, and in some cases, there is clear usurpation of congressional powers by Malacañang.

The latest EO issued is EO 4, which “restructures” the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) while giving this department a new name, to be known officially as the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).

EO 4 states: “There is a vital need to reorganize and effect functional changes within the Office of the Press Secretary and create an office to systematize, rationalize, and complement the existing structure to achieve a more efficient and systematic interaction between the people, the Office of the President and the executive branch.”

It justifies this move with the statement saying that it is “imperative that government redefines its efforts to integrate and harmonize its message conceptualization, formation and development policies and programs in order to fully utilize the opportunities arising from the rapid development of existing and emerging media.”

This new “restructured” media office set up even has two Cabinet secretaries, which is unheard of, in one department, unless of course, the old OPS has now been divided into two full departments, which would be illegal, since it is Congress, and not Malacañang, even through an EO, that can create departments or abolish them.

While Aquino and his legal team attempt to pass this creation of the PCOO as a case of “reorganization” it is in reality, an abolition of the OPS and the creation of a new department with two secretaries. No way can this abolition and creation of two new departments lumped together into a Communications Group be called a “restructuring” of the OPS since this abolishes the OPS and creates a new department.

Another point of probable irregularity in EO 4 is the fact that this “reorganization” of the OPS, claimed to be intended to “systematize, rationalize, and complement the existing structure” for a more efficient and systematic interaction between the people, the Office of the President and the executive branch, goes against the grain of an agency or department, through its facilities, such as the sequestered TV networks, the state news agency, the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) and government radio and TV stations, to name a few.

What has happened, by virtue of Noynoy’s EO 4 is that the “reconstructed” OPS, now the PCOO, serves only the media needs of the President and the executive department. In other words, the PCOO has become solely Noynoy’s propaganda machine. The EO 4 virtually states so.

Yet the OPS’ media networks are, strictly speaking, to serve as an information arm for the entire government, and not just for the President and the executive department, because the executive department is not the entire government.

The public should be kept informed, not just on the presidential activities and whatever policies he comes up with, if Noynoy ever comes up with policies, but the entire activities whether these are related to the executive, the legislative or the judiciary.

To this day, even as the government NBN 4 is subsidized by taxpayers’ money, all it has done throughout the nine and a half years of the Arroyo administration was to focus on Gloria and Palace propaganda. The PIA did the same. Philippine News Agency mostly took as its stories, press releases from various government agencies, but always reserved top spot for Malacañang’s propaganda---all positive.

Never, however, did any of these agencies under the OPS ever really provide information by way of explanations and backgrounders. Always, it was propaganda while deliberately killing what was seen by the Palace as negative news or giving it a completely different slant.

The whole thing of “restructuring” something that Noynoy has abolished is again no different from the illusion magicians perform.

The PCOO is also no different from the illusion of the wang-wang no longer used by Noynoy. In reality, the wang-wang structure is still in force and effect.

True, the noise of wang-wang is gone. But the car blinkers, the motorcycle security are still in place, serving the same purpose.

As for there being no counterflow, this has been replaced with a closure of the roads to public vehicles when Noynoy travels. That too, just illusion that the wang-wang system is gone. The trappings of power and pelf are still there. One just doesn’t hear it.

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