Clerical post for a lackey BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 06/10/2010

Clerical post for a lackey

BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 06/10/2010 There is one thing which Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo has an abundance of — gall. Romulo, who has been holding the Foreign Affairs portfolio in Mrs. Arroyo’s Cabinet since 2004, proved it when he was quoted by reporters as saying he would be amenable to working for the administration of President-elect Benigno Aquino III, “even as a clerk.” While it cannot be denied that sometime late last year he did publicly express his personal preference for Noynoy — whose mother the late President Cory Aquino he had served as Budget minister over two decades ago — in the 2010 polls over former Defense Chief Gibo Teodoro who was the handpicked choice of Malacañang, the fact remains that Romulo still was one of the most canine supporters of the much-despised Mrs. Arroyo, much to the chagrin of dyed-in-the-wool Coryistas who had come to regard him as a traitor to their common cause.  Romulo’s off-the-cuff remark, which he claimed was uttered during a private conversation and therefore shouldn’t have seen print, spawned a lot of vitriol from other functionaries in the Arroyo government, and it reached the point where they began demanding his resignation from his lofty position out of delicadeza since he had explicitly stated he wouldn’t be actively supporting the administration’s presidential candidate who was at the same time a Cabinet colleague. Lorelei Fajardo, the deputy presidential spokesman at the time, didn’t care to mince words over her disillusionment and also called for Romulo’s head over his blatant hypocrisy in favoring the opposition’s poster boy Aquino who had vowed he would make life really difficult for certain Arroyo stalwarts if he should win in the elections. Ever the thick-skinned politician (please be reminded that he was a multi-term senator), Romulo brushed off the flak he had unwittingly caused by asserting to the DFA media that he would not be joining the ranks of the opposition, who had embraced Noynoy as their only chance for change, and would continue serving Mrs. Arroyo as her Foreign secretary until June 30, 2010 when she would be stepping down as President. “I have to make it very clear that … I am standing by the President until the end of her term and beyond,” Romulo was quoted in a statement issued by the DFA. Undoubtedly, Romulo’s relationship with Mrs. Arroyo had already gone far beyond the beso-beso stage, contrary to what he would like to make it appear to the public. What else can be inferred, when you have three Romulos working for the incumbent. His son Roman sought reelection (and won handily) as Pasig City congressman under the Lakas party. Also, he had his daughter Bernadette appointed as undersecretary in the Department of Agriculture. And he has the gall to assume the newly-empowered “yellow crowd” will be making a beeline for his doorstep stumbling all over themselves just to invite him to be a part of the bureaucracy they will be forming merely because he happened to be an original Coryista, and in spite of the fact that he licked the boots of his master in Malacañang due to his closet desire for power and pelf..... MORE     Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100610com4.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL All signs point to massive electronic fraud FRONTLINE Pushing electoral protests focus Bhopal: 25 years for justice — even more for a clean-up BLURBAL THRUSTS Clerical post for a lackey VIEWPOINTS Truth can wait — but not forever COMMENT Critique of the May 2010 automated polls FEATURE Phoenician or Arab? A never-ending debate in Lebanon