It’s high time President Aquino starts practising what he used to preach, beginning it with desisting from reappointing his Cabinet officials who have already been bypassed by the Commission on Appointments (CA) numerous times, at times going up to eight bypasses.
While acknowledging that reappointing his Cabinet officials despite having already been bypassed by the CA is within the prerogative of the President, House Minority Leader, Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez, at the minority’s weekly press briefing said it would be better if Aquino would live up to his word on what  he had been advocating when he was still a senator.
“It is true that this is a presidential prerogative (reappointing bypassed Cabinet officials), but we will remind the President that he himself had denounced this practice under the previous presidency when he filed Senate Bill 1719 during the fourteenth Congress,”  Suarez pointed out.
During the 14th Congress, then Senator Aquino filed Senate Bill 1719 entitled “An Act Limiting the Reappointment of Presidential Nominees Bypassed by the Commission on Appointments” saying “that President (Gloria) Arroyo (now a representative of the second district of Pampanga) abused her power to reappoint her bypassed Cabinet secretaries because of her consistent reappointment of her nominees who have been consecutively bypassed by the Commission on Appointments.”
In that particular bill, Aquino cited a Cabinet official “who has been successively bypassed 15 times in a span of three years has been reappointed by the President and allowed to continue performing the functions reserved only to those officials whose nominations have been confirmed by the CA.”
“The CA’s constitutional mandate to serve as an effective check against the possible abuse of the President’s power to appoint is thus frustrated by the current practice, as the President merely re-appoints all her nominees regardless of the number of times the said nominees have been by-passed by the CA. The restraint against possible abuse of the President’s appointing power is clearly rendered ineffective if not totally non-existent,” Aquino stated in his explanatory note of his bill.
“Thus, we urge this administration to desist from repeatedly reappointing Cabinet officials who have already been bypassed by the congressional committee on appointments,” said Suarez.
Before Congress went on a sine die adjournment more than two weeks ago, the CA again bypassed the appointments of five cabinet members, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje, Interior Secretary Jessie Robredo and Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon Soliman.
Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez is also pushing the immediate approval of House Bill 1647 saying the practice of simply reappointing a presidential nominee even after several bypasses by the CA “subverts the principle of confirmation mandated by the Constitution.”
The bill’s proposed provisions will still have to undergo fine tuning by a technical working group that may soon be formed by the House’s Committee on Revision of Laws.
Rodriguez cited Article VII, of the Constitution, which states that “the President shall nominate and, with the consent of the Commission of Appointments, appoint the heads of the executive departments, ambassadors, other public ministers and consults, or officers of the armed forces from the rank of colonel or naval captain, and other officers whose appointments are vested in him in this Constitution.”
Rodriguez said the Constitution further states that “the President shall have the power to make appointments during the recess of the Congress, whether voluntary or compulsory, but such appointments shall be effective only until disapproval by the Commission on Appointments or until the next adjournment of Congress.”
“The CA is usually reluctant to reject outright the presidential nominees, hence, would not confirm the appointment resulting in bypass,” Rodriguez said.
He said the situation makes a mockery of the constitutional duties of the CA to confirm and reject presidential appointees on the basis of the check and balance powers of the legislative branch of the government.
There has been one instance, however, where the CA flatly rejected a presidential appointee, Ricardo Saludo, who was then President Gloria Arroyo’s nominee for the post of head of the Civil Service Commission.
His appointment was objected to by then Rep. Rodolfo “Ompong” Plaza.
But Aquino is hell-bent on on reappointing De Lima, whose confirmation has already been bypassed eight times by the powerful CA, along with another nominee, who has also been bypassed many times over by the CA:  Corazon “Dinky” Soliman.
Also seen headed for presidential reappointment is Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo, who has recently been the subject of numerous criticisms over his statements seen as premature, conclusive and categorical against Jordanian journalist Baker Atyani, who has remained in Abu Sayaff captivity along with two Filipino news crew members in Jolo since June 12.
In a press briefing, Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda admitted that while he isn’t privy to a pending legislative bill seeking to set limits on the president’s power of reappointing government officials having a hard time getting a CA confirmation, he had  occasion to speak with Aquino on the issue.
Lacierda explained that not all incidents that see a political appointee bypassed by the CA could be interpreted as outright rejection of the bicameral group mandated to screen designated officials. He said that there are various reasons for which the CA wasn’t able to go over an appointee seeking their concurrence.
Lacierda added that the President only gets to reappoint a government official whom he designated to a post, if he firmly believes that the person is capable of delivering results in a government position he sees as tailor-fit for the person.
“I’m not clear with the exact provision. I’m aware that he filed a bill on that. But I’m not…exactly aware what the details of the bill are... let me verify. But I had an occasion to speak with him a long time ago on this point. He said, well, it depends on… Right now, there are a number of issues why a person is not confirmed. Either… There are various reasons for which an appointee is by-passed. He believes that these people, the Cabinet secretaries that he has appointed to those departments are capable. These people enjoy his trust and confidence. He therefore believes that while they have not been rejected, it is important that they continue to deliver the services upon which they were tasked to do. So that’s the President’s position as far as I remember speaking to him about this issue,” Lacierda said.