Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has barely a month to stay as president, yet she continues to be as recalcitrant as she can ever be.
Not contented with having appointed Renato Corona as chief justice of the Supreme Court, Arroyo has shown again her hostile and antipathetic character by reappointing Efraim Genuino as chair of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), extending his term into the incoming administration of apparent president-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
Why can’t the outgoing president simply have the courtesy, the civility and the graciousness to allow her successor to make the appointments of government positions?
It is not a question of the appointment by Arroyo being “above board,” as Elena Bautista, chief of the Presidential Management Staff, claims it to be.
Rather, it is more a question of propriety, of respectability and of good breeding that she has to defer all her midnight installations in recognition of the authority of the newly elected president.
Actually, what President Arroyo is doing is simply playing crony politics.
One time or another Arroyo must have elicited some favors from her close friends or cronies.
It’s pay-back time. Quid pro quo.
Nothing wrong, perhaps, with that, but why make it a contentious legal issue to be debated upon and resolved by the new administration when it could have been avoided in the first place?
Can’t we just turn over the reins of power and let the new administration make the choices they want for the government positions?
Hope we have seen the last of President Arroyo’s midnight appointments – for the good of the nation.
