Dirty tricks 2013 preview

Editorial

The nation is being treated with a preview of the dirty politics that would likely be a main ingredient of the elections next year and three years after that in the current maneuverings at the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) featuring its overanxious designated head Mar Roxas. And Roxas’ priority target for purging is Undersecretary Rico Puno.

Puno has been a controversial figure at the DILG right off the bat in his appointment. He was being linked to the illegal numbers game jueteng and was also singled out as one of those primarily responsible for the carnage that resulted from the amateurish police rescue of Hong Kong tourists taken hostages on a bus in August 2010, just a few months after Noynoy had assumed the presidency.

Puno being entrusted the supervision of the Philippine National Police (PNP) instead of being part of the late Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo’s sphere of authority was equally a source of intrigue.

There is hardly any question that Robredo was never in within the circle of Noynoy, which was probably why he was never given the job of being in control of the PNP. This was probably why Puno was given the undersecretaryship of the police force. Noynoy probably trusted Puno more than he ever did Robredo in such specific matters.

But with Mar Roxas not yet even in the DILG saddle, he wanted Puno out, except that he had no authority as yet to oust him. There is doubt that Mar was happy when Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa came out to say that Puno has not resigned and is still the DILG undersecretary.

But that didn’t end there of course. Puno must be out, and there were ways for the Roxas camp to ease him out.

Now Puno is being accused of attempting to ransack the offices of Robredo moments after he was reported missing in a plane crash. The allegations apparently are being fed to the media by the Roxas camp as part efforts to purge Puno.

It is turning put that Puno being at the office of Robredo was on the orders of Noynoy to secure sensitive documents. The Roxas-commissioned exposé in one of the major broadcast stations — the known yellow station — made it appear that the widow of Robredo got wind of Puno’s “ransacking” and sought the help of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to secure the offices of Robredo.

Roxas’ first agenda when he got his appointment from Noynoy, apparently following some political arm-twisting, was to announce the relief of Puno as part of a revamp in the DILG, for which he got a warning from some members of the bicameral Commission on Appointments (CA) that he can’t make changes in the department until after he gets his CA confirmation.

Efforts to remove Puno apparently involve who gets to oversee the PNP operations as this was made clear by Noynoy, of course, with Roxas dictating the terms for his appointment, that the supervision over police reverts to the DILG chief.

The warning from the CA over his overeagerness in purging the DILG apparently stymied Roxas and the LP horde he’s bringing into the agency, thus explains the demolition job.

More gutter sludge is expected to be stirred up against Puno and likely the Robredo holdovers at the DILG to justify their removal since Roxas would be hitting two birds with a stone in doing so by making it look like part of a reform process to rid the agency of scalawags.

If this is a preview on the machinery to be unleashed in the coming elections, the real thing would definitely be far more vicious.

Dirty politics under Noynoy is alive and kicking.