GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Friday, July 11, 2008
When opposition Sen. Francis Escudero fretted that Romy Neri’s entry as SSS head “might be used for politics,” even admin insiders silently agreed. Neri during the Senate’s inquiry last September into the ZTE scam famously had sacrificed truth for politics. He exposed Comelec chief Ben Abalos’ P200-million offer to endorse the telecom deal as then-economic secretary in early 2007. But he clammed up from thereon, risking Senate detention for contempt and constitutional crisis from a Malacañang-Senate showdown. Invoking executive privilege, he refused to tell what his boss President Gloria Arroyo did after he reported to her the bribery attempt.
Neri placed Arroyo’s above public interest, Escudero noted. That’s where danger lies in the new posting to head the government-administered mutual fund of private workers. Presidents historically have abused their power to appoint SSS CEOs by using the P250-billion fund for personal gain. Say, for popularity gimmicks like hiking pensions even if the SSS can’t afford it; or for outright kickbacks from SSS stock trading, like the BW Resources scandal under Joseph Estrada.
That’s probably why Sen. Mar Roxas, who had left Estrada’s Cabinet in 2000 due to an SSS mess among others, was pointed. “I would not have made that appointment; these are turbulent times for the country,” he said. “It’s not time to appoint someone with minimal real-life work experience in the marketplace to sit atop the SSS, which has nearly 30 million members.” Having worked with Neri in the succeeding Arroyo Cabinet, Roxas knows: “This appointment will just drive unneeded political controversy.”
Executive Secretary Ed Ermita’s defense of Neri’s administrative skill fell short. He cited Neri’s past jobs as management professor and Congress economic adviser, hardly solid qualifiers as an executive. Neri wears other stars: he graduated magna cum laude from UP-Diliman and speaks fluent Chinese, but those too do not count for organizational savvy. (His clean-up man in the ZTE deal, Jun Lozada, has left him.)
Roxas’ predicted political controversy bears watching out for. Talk is that Neri was moved to SSS to help the fight in Meralco of Winston Garcia, head of the GSIS provident fund of state employees. Garcia has been trying to wrest control of the country’s biggest power utility from the Lopez clan. Combining GSIS’s 18-percent holdings in Meralco with the 15 percent of SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG, he confronted the Lopezes’ 35-percent hold last May. There were reports that erstwhile SSS president Cora dela Paz hesitated to go along, and so had to be removed. Dela Paz wouldn’t reveal the reason, saying only that politics had to do with it.
Neri at the height of the Meralco face-off in May was reported to be orchestrating the admin’s moves against the Lopezes. He lists them among his hated oligarchs who allegedly manipulate the regulatory agencies. The SSS posting gives Neri a huge war chest with which to pound his — and now Arroyo’s — declared enemy. Ermita hinted as much. Neri’s transfer to SSS comes with an unprecedented Cabinet rank. As SSS boss, Neri will act as “social welfare czar” overseeing as well the GSIS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG.
The Cabinet rank is for convenience. Ermita stressed to reporters that Neri will continue to be protected by executive privilege, and may not be forced by the courts or Congress to divulge past or present chats with the President.
Most of all, the appointment is an accommodation. Neri has always wanted to be, and stay, in the Cabinet. Since 1987 he was a congressional economist, first as staffer and later as chief. Resignations by the “Hyatt 10” in the wake of the Hello Garci poll rigging opened up opportunities. Backed by then-Speaker Joe de Venecia, Neri became budget secretary in July 2005 and then economic secretary in February 2006.
In August 2007, however, as the ZTE story was brewing in the press, Arroyo moved Neri to the sub-Cabinet Commission on Higher Education. It was, he proclaimed then, for only six months, to trouble-shoot college curricula to suit job availabilities. But close associates said he was demoted for angering Palace spin-doctors with too candid admissions — three in all — of the admin’s bad economic performances.
Senators suspect that Neri protected Arroyo with silence in the ZTE hearings the following month to prove himself worthy to rejoin her inner circle. He reportedly sought a meeting with the boss in November to beg for reposting to either of his prestigious past Cabinet seats. But distrustful presidential advisers blocked him. He was too close not only to de Venecia, whom they would depose in February 2008, but also to House Minority Leader Ronnie Zamora.
It didn’t help any that Neri’s name was linked to the
Perhaps that was just one of the usual coup rumors, but Neri did commit an indiscretion, by Arroyo-loyalists’ standards, on December 9. He arranged to meet at a secluded
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. suspects that Arroyo is keeping Neri in the Cabinet to placate him. “Why doesn’t she just keep Neri under her bed, so she can continuously monitor him?” he said, half joking.
But that’s just it. Arroyo wants him in, but also out.
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