Dreadful Diagnosis

SOME TISSUES GROW where they are not supposed to be, and they get into healthy organs and destroy them. These tissues cause cancerous growth to protrude and to quickly damage the whole system, which is why a CA diagnosis is frightening like no other medical condition.

Politically speaking, CA stands for Commission on Appointments that draws its authority directly from the Philippine Constitution. This political tissue is very powerful that its movements carry the same frightening nuances as its scientific analogue. Its main purpose is to review presidential appointments to high positions in the government service. The recent revelations of Rep Herminio Teves denote that the CA has generated malignant practices in the exercise of its functions.

The malignancy in the CA is an open secret in the government. The fear on the part of those subjected to its proceedings, mingled by a lopsided sense of parliamentary camaraderie among the members, allows it to prosper. The cancer is fed rather than arrested because the appointing power is regarded as an integral part of the mutualism in politics.

The venture begins at the sub-committee level. Clueless appointees are given the run-around until they learn the full extent of their helplessness before the leaders of the CA. It is possible to fight a desolate virus but nearly impossible to control a bunch of determined thieves in position. They have all the power to hurt, to humiliate, and to bleed you dry if you allow them to. The strength of a respectable appointee depends on how much the position means to him or her. Appointments representing generals and career ambassadors are vulnerable and industrious in pleasing their masters while ambitious individuals, for whom a government appointment is nothing more than a launching pad for their political careers, know the game too well and are more than willing to accept its unspoken rules.

It is awakening to know that only a few in the CA are consistently involved in the obvious extortion. The system offers no resistance, so the malignancy penetrates the whole commission. Many politicians do not try to hide their personal intentions. Political cancer spreads by destroying the wall between public interests and personal intentions.