Government shakedown in the Aquino Administration: First Quarter Storm

Unknown to most of us, a shakedown is happening right this very moment inside the Aquino III administration. This shakedown, considered the most brute yet the most just, aims to cleanse the bureaucracy of officials who benefited at all from corruption (whether during the past or present dispensation) and of those occupying redundant positions. Most agencies are being cut by half.

People are surmissing that this is the effects of the eventual entry of former Senator Mar Roxas in the administration. This is a practice since the beginning of this Republic. Posts, save those with fixed terms or tenures, are political. That's why people who lap the arses of their principals so much, risk death when their principals leave his heavenly abode and began the difficult journey of an ordinary citizen. Without power, he leaves his lieutenants and generals at the mercy of his replacement.

This practice continues up to this very day for one simple reason---the government bureaucracy is a snakepit. Those who do not toe the traditional line and wants nothing more than change stand the risks of leaving the bureaucracy without their heads.

A new leader obviously wants his fiefdom lined with his own surrogates. This is what is happening.

There is also a deeper reason---this administration is cost-saving. Redundant positions, especially those in the division and directorial posts run in the hundreds. This specie is much important in the survival of the system. They are the ones who run the government regardless of who heads it. They are the ones expert enough on how to ruin somebody in the bureaucracy OR create a hero out of an outlaw.

When two outlaws share the same functions, someone is expected to sacrifice himself.

There is nothing wrong with a technocrat like Mar Roxas heading this government. It is time for someone with the brains and with the political sophistication to assist this govermment in its commitment to fight the scourge of graft and corruption inside the bureaucracy.