"The President's prerogative, " a haughty defense for the uproar and indignation caused by the latest list of persons to be conferred the prestigious title of National Artist. This chilled my frail bone and brought back hazy memories of "Dean's prerogative" everytime administrative decisions were met with outrage in UPTC where I was employed years ago.
This so-called prerogative of the highest authority, I can understand the how of it - how it's often used, in more brazen ways than one, and how gratifying it must be but the why of it, I should be enlightened. Is this part of the Social Contract where we entrust the "common good" to the sovereign? Is the sovereign capable of deciding for the common good, all the time? Is the Leviathan infallible and who is to police his thoughts and actions?
If the president chooses to use this power of having the prerogative, what is the point in installing a democratic exercise or a semblance of democratic process through a selection committee when in the end, the recommendations of the committee carry no substantive weight? It's a waste of resources. Might as well go by gut-feel.
The GMA administration is particularly notorious for bypassing the Committe on Apointments in some of its controversial appointees in the past so this is not particularly shocking - GMA soiling her hands, yet once again, in the area of culture and the arts. Naglilinamiri na gud la, nga kagwang.
I force myself to look at GMA on TV and not puke and I see a woman who is not only so at home with power but is so smug about it. She has flabbergasted me several times by her propensity to give tongue-lashings to government officials deemed inefficient with the cameras panning on her infuriated expression. Some landlords treat their slaves better. People with lesser virtue would curb their tongue and try to act properly even on pretense, but this woman who has been raised in wealth, had a president for a father, and a crook for a husband? shows no qualms parading to the world what her power provides and how she intends using it.
Some smartass texted GMA's fitting epitaph: Here lies.....and I find myself not disagreeing.
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