Priming the coalition for the midterms
The State of the Nation Address will mark the kickoff
This week, the settling-in period for the administration can be said to have come to an and as the President fills the last overdue vacancies in his Cabinet and the energies of the administration shifts to preparing the 2024 election budget (the 2025 budget, since it actually comprises the mid-term election, is rather more limited as an electoral vehicle).
This week’s The Long View:
THE LONG VIEW
Prelude to the mid-term kickoff
By: Manuel L. Quezon III - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:00 AM June 07, 2023
Because Ferdinand Marcos Sr. changed the official year in 1978, making it begin in June rather than December, subsequent presidents including Ferdinand Marcos Jr. no longer begin their terms on Rizal Day but rather, on June 30. This means every new president has ended up inheriting a budget from their predecessor, which ties their hands during their first six months in office. The action plan a new president announces during their first State of the Nation Address, in turn, can only kick in when the first full budget enacted under the new president is approved. This foundational budget, in turn, prepares the way for what actually happens starting with the second State of the Nation Address: the mid-term campaign. So when the current, 18th Congress convenes for the second of its three sessions, it will be listening to the President laying out his 2025 mid-term campaign: because it’s the 2024 budget that will matter for those engaged in the mission of ensuring the victory of the administration in the mid-term referendum election.
The prelude to the campaign kickoff is the traditional Cabinet reshuffle after the first year in office. This is when the political tent can further expand with the absorption of candidates who lost in the previous election. For the incumbent President, it’s also the chance to conclude unfinished business as far as the Cabinet is concerned. His handing of the defense and health portfolios to Gilbert Teodoro and Teodoro Herbosa, respectively, leaves the agriculture portfolio as the last major vacancy to be filled. As for reshuffling, observers are waiting to see, for example, whether Jaime Bautista of transportation and communications and Alfredo Pascual of trade and industry, will be retained.
The President, true to form, waited until Congress went on recess, to start announcing his new Cabinet appointments. While the one-year, post-election ban on losing candidates expired last May 10, the President didn’t actually announce and swear in individuals covered by that ban until yesterday. There’s a procedural reason for this: Making what’s called ad interim appointments during the congressional recess allows appointees to immediately assume their posts, and hold them until and unless Congress’ Commission on Appointments acts on the appointments by confirming or rejecting them, or the next recess rolls around without action on their appointments, in which case they expire. If the President had made appointments while Congress was in session, the appointments would have expired if the session ended without action on the appointments.
Almost two decades have passed since Teodoro was given the portfolio he now holds again. He has the acquisition of big-ticket items to preside over: the selection of a medium-range fighter; the commissioning of the next generation of capital ships, whether corvettes or destroyers; and the acquisition of light tanks. His commentary in The Diplomat tells us he is fully aligned with the policy of upholding the country’s arbitration victory. He brings a respectable constituency to the administration tent. If we understand the first year of the present dispensation to have been spent gradually asserting control over the armed forces and police, the appointment of a civilian defense chief suggests confidence on the part of the President, and that the military has been sorted out.
The only question that remains is whether the new defense secretary will be counted among the principal advisors and lieutenants of the President.
By all accounts the President’s circle of trust is a highly restricted one: there is, of course, the First Lady; there is Special Assistant to the President Anton Lagdameo Jr.; Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos; head of the Presidential Security Group Gen. Ramon Zagala; and Speaker Martin Romualdez. One thing that sets apart this rebooted administration both from itself, at the start (can you still remember the early names that have been discarded?), and its immediate predecessors, is the lack of organized, identifiable, factions within the Palace. Credit, if that’s the right word, for this state of affairs has been given to the First Lady, of whom the most interesting scuttlebutt at the start of her husband’s term, was that she’d chosen to establish her office in the Presidential Management Staff, a very unconventional, because internal-looking, choice. The President himself has characterized the first year as on-the-job training. His foreign affairs, military and police, coalition, budget, and Maharlika Investment Fund now settled, the period of stabilization can now give way to the campaign.
Notes on the above
The Veep made a “cryptic” comment about a “tamboloslos” and the Speaker’s allies came to his rescue —leading to a broadside from the Veep directly aimed at the Speaker and his people.
The Veep’s recent salvo against the Speaker underscores the (Sara) Duterte-Arroyo-(Imee) Marcos Axis.
It doesn’t belie the widely-shared belief that former president Arroyo brokered the coalition; but adds that Imee Marcos was the ambassador between her family and the Veep-to-be, who laid down conditions. In turn this serves as a reminder that some of those conditions may not have been fulfilled (remember the Department of National Defense?).
Still the Veep knows better than to take pot-shots at the President but the Speaker, being bruited about quite prematurely as the President’s political heir apparent, is fair game and points to the point of divergence in the coalition as 2028 (not 2025) approaches.
Postscript Department
After speculation the production outfit of Rep. Albee Benitez would be, TVJ (Tito, Vic, and Joey) have signed up with Channel 5. The battle remains over who owns the name of the show: TAPE maintains trademark for title ‘Eat Bulaga’.
An interesting read, by Martin Peers, writing in The Information:
CNN still generates cash, so it comes in handy for its debt-pressured parent. But while CNN’s internal machinations draw lots of headlines, it’s a relatively small piece of Warner Bros. Discovery’s business. Assuming The New York Times was correct in reporting on Sunday that CNN generated $750 million in profit last year, the news channel accounted for just 8% of the profits flowing from all of the company’s cable channels. Those other channels, which include entertainment outlets like TNT, TBS and Discovery, are also suffering the impact of cord-cutting. But given CNN's myriad additional hassles, WBD CEO David Zaslav could be forgiven for wondering whether owning the news outlet is worth the trouble. If he sold it, perhaps to a needy billionaire willing to overpay for a high-profile brand name, Zaslav could use the proceeds to pay down debt.
An interesting historical finding: DNA test reveals ex-President Sergio Osmeña’s father.