Taking risks

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Taking risks
Sunday, 02 13, 2005

The correct title for last Sunday’s article in this column was “Taking risks.” But somehow, between the time my emailed article got to the editorial desk and the time The Daily Tribune was put to bed, one of those pressroom snafus reared its ugly head. Result: the body of the article got christened as “Imposing freedom to gain peace.” You could imagine the number of perplexed readers asking whether I, too, like the subject of my article have put my foot in my mouth without first ascertaining whether the right lobe of my brain was functioning. Oh well, perhaps taking risks invoking freedom to gain peace is one hazard of writing. It does not mean anything even.

At any rate, the mismatch between head and body of the article was a snafu not of my own making. A careless layout artist perhaps? The word snafu, by the way, originated as a military acronym for initial letters of the phrase, “situation normal, all f---ed up.” Thus today, when somebody wants to damp down the intensity of a blunder, he is apt to explain it away as merely a snafu. In this respect, Natural Resources Secretary Mike Defensor could perhaps plead guilty to a verbal snafu in connection with l’affaire Jamby. But let us suppose that the good secretary really, truly, irreversibly incurred the vengeful ire of members of Congress, upon whom the budget for his department depends, and his confirmation as a member of the Cabinet rests. In that eventuality, he gets a pittance for a budget, and a thumbs down during his confirmation. In this case, Defensor can exclaim: “Tarfu!” Which is another acronym, meaning “things are really f---ed up.”

We all commit snafus that lead to tarfus in our lives. It’s all part of taking risks. Wasn’t it Stevenson who first elucidated the wise aphorism with which today’s young people justify their mistakes? - No pain, no gain. Or, as we reiterate ‘taking risks’ in the context of appointees who must still face confirmation by the Commission on Appointments (CA), there is no glory without sacrifice (pun intended).

The sacrament of confirmation is a rite of passage for every Christian. This is supposed to infuse one with the grace of the Holy Spirit, forever armed to fight evil and equipped to do good to his fellow men. Another confirmation, this time ceremoniously performed in the altar of politics, presages exactly the opposite. A nominee to a high government office, obsessed with serving the people, goes through this gauntlet at great sacrifice, and takes the risk of facing and combating the various manifestations of what I call as the political Holey Ghost (i.e., “full of holes”).

Last week, I went through an eerie experience. There was this nominee who was telling me a tale fraught with woe as she went through the confirmation process of the CA. I thought I’ve met this nominee somewhere before, but in the muddled recesses of my mind I could not place a finger to her identity, so let’s just call her Sec. X. She told me how one Holey Ghost in the 25-man CA has made it hard for her that she thought it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for her to enter the portals of her prospective office. “Why so?” I inquired. Sec. X told me that the Holey Ghost has set up roadblocks along the way. Initially it was the claim that the nomination papers were incomplete; next she was informed that her medical tests revealed problems about her health; then made-up oppositors appeared to block her nomination. Having surmounted all these obstacles, Sec. X now had to face the quid pro quo, the trade-offs: a contract here, an opinion there, a road to build, a juicy position for the Holey Ghost’s siblings, a promise not to run in the next elections, the usual commission on transactions, etcetera.

Sec. X did not ask to be appointed. It was offered to her, like it were an imposition: Take it now, she was urged - for love of country, because you are the only one for the job. But Sec. X did not quite figure out the next sacrifice: She would have to go through the wringer, and she would have to contend with this Holey Ghost who in due time, after he finishes with his term in the Congress, could be after the same Cabinet position.

Sec. X ended her tale of woe by telling me that her mind was being dangerously stretched to the end of its tether, and that the horse-trading was driving her out of her wits. I wished her good luck and reminded her that she was only speaking of a couple of Holey Ghosts. How about the other 23? Or even just one more, to complete an unholy trinity?

What does one expect of a nominee to give in return for her confirmation? If our nominee gives in, she will have sold her soul to the devil or, rather, to the Holey Ghosts, who will forever hold her by the short and curly. She is dead meat and her soul is theirs forever. Her entire term will be pockmarked with graft here, corruption there… You know - recouping one’s losses, and maximizing the gains.

And then I woke up.

I was just dreaming after all. Perhaps, by some psychic snafu, my encounter with several nominees these past many years that I have been observing the confirmation process merged into that dream. But I kid you not: one or the other probably happened, we all know that.

Those members of the CA are just too powerful for comfort. I would love to be in their seats, but first I must get elected as senator. But then again, how do I get the money for it, and from whom? There goes the cycle again, which every aspiring legislator will have to hurdle. If you ask me, I would rather stick to lawyering. This way, I do not have to exclaim: “Tarfu!”

-000-

Saludo. Dr. Emerlinda R. Roman, the first woman president of the University of the Philippines, received the UP Mace from her predecessor, Dr. Francisco Nemenzo, last Thursday. Emer will serve for six years, and will preside over the UP Centennial in 2008. Her challenge to everyone who loves UP: “More than our love for knowledge, let us rely on our imagination, for imagination is boundless. Let us move UP forward, imagining what it can achieve in its next 100 years as the premiere institution of higher learning.”

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