LAST week, I had the opportunity to meet former executive secretary Lucas Bersamin for a one-on-one interview. Bersamin, of course, has been in the public eye for troublesome reasons of late, and so that was obviously a good reason to accept his invitation, but there was much more to it than that from my perspective.
On a somewhat petty personal level, I was eager to meet Bersamin because whatever else may be said about him, he is a former chief justice of the Supreme Court, and one of the country’s most experienced and respected jurists, having spent about 34 years on the bench. In this job, I’ve met presidents, and prime ministers, and ambassadors, and secretaries and ministers of this and that, but I’ve never met a chief justice.
Nor have I ever met an executive secretary, for that matter. The position is somewhat unique to this country. It is defined in detail in the law (the 1987 Administrative Code), but somewhat “diffuse” — the word Bersamin used — in application. The executive secretaries, at least in the (many) years that I have been here, have been paradoxically both highly visible and elusive, seemingly having a great deal of authority, but keeping themselves just beyond the edge of the spotlight that shines on the president. Those who have tried to step into the light, such as Bersamin’s immediate predecessor Vic Rodriguez, have found themselves looking for another job fairly quickly.
So, it is a position that is a bit mysterious to the public, and to the outside observers, some in this country and some elsewhere, that seem to make up a fair-sized portion of my audience. In a democracy, that is not a good situation, and may be especially problematic when the position is routinely referred to as “the little president,” a label that Bersamin dislikes and explained is quite inaccurate. Clarifying the role, even though the definition changes a bit with each new executive secretary or president, is helpful.
At this point I must address the proverbial elephant in the room, the allegations made against Bersamin in the ongoing flood control corruption scandal. We did indeed discuss the topic, and at great length, and from that part of the conversation I have drawn a solid conclusion, as well as forming several opinions about the provenance of those allegations. However, I fully agree with Justice Bersamin that there is a proper time and context to divulge that to the public. For one thing, the investigative hearings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee have restarted. My dim opinion of that exercise notwithstanding, it is an official proceeding, and more importantly, one that Bersamin has said he is fully willing to participate in if requested. It is bad form to trample over hearings for the record, although that is a courtesy that a lot of pundits do not observe.
What surprised me the most in hearing Bersamin’s description of his job as executive secretary is that the position, at least in the Marcos palace, is far less powerful than most people would suppose. The executive secretary is an important advisor and gatekeeper for the president, but only in certain respects; the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) and the special advisor to the president (SAP) also have important parts, and the three tend not to step into each other’s respective lanes.
As Bersamin described it, the main role of the executive secretary, at least during his time, was largely representative in a ministerial context: representing the president to the public or the rest of the Cabinet when, for whatever reason, the president himself could not, and representing the administration as a whole at times some unified message needed to be conveyed. Other primary duties included overseeing the proper formulation of executive orders, and keeping information flowing smoothly from the various secretaries to the president.
Indeed, Bersamin also was an important advisor for the president, but far from being the only one. Like most presidents, President Marcos has his own cadre of trusted friends, and above them all, the very capable first lady, and so takes in whatever guidance he feels is most useful. Bersamin candidly admitted that he eventually came to find this situation frustrating, as it is difficult to keep the traffic between the president and the outside world under control if some of it is using the back road, but viewed the situation with resigned good humor. It’s just how presidents are, and it’s not like anyone, even the executive secretary, can tell him what to do or not do.
And that acceptance of the president’s prerogative apparently extended to Bersamin’s agreeing to take the job of executive secretary in the first place. By the time he got the call from President Marcos, in September 2022, Bersamin had already retired from a respectable career as a judge, and had settled into a nice post-retirement life as chairman of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) board — where he oversaw a thorough cleanup of the way its funds were being handled, something most people are unaware of — occasional teaching, and assisting his wife with her business.
“You didn’t need this, so why jump back into the bog?” I asked him.
“Well, you’re right, I didn’t need it,” Bersamin replied. “But I felt I was being called to serve the country, again. I couldn’t say no.”
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social