Bands Leads the Bands

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Thursday, September 24, 1998

Breaktime

By CONRADO R. BANAL III

BE forewarned it’s just a rumor, a probable case of the blind leading the blind. Supposedly, the man named Band ... Wrist Band ... was going to hold yesterday—and get ready—for this an unusual meeting of his official band called the Cabinet.

Thus the rumor mills were cranking furiously. Something, my dear Tibo, must be happening. Imagine Wrist Band himself finally decided it was time to hold another Cabinet meeting. There must be a national emergency of some sort or something.

If indeed Wrist Band called for a Cabinet meeting yesterday it would be only his third one. Yes, three! Including, of course, if I may be charitable about it that first "meeting" held on his inaugural day last July 1.

I now classify it, liberally, as a Cabinet meeting, since Wrist Band gave a short message to his official band, as he swore to dedicate his presidency to the poor. He exercised band leadership then by giving his men this gem of wisdom: "Don't fight!"

That, er, "meeting" was held only 85 days ago exactly from yesterday's third meeting. Wow! Only three Cabinet meetings in 85 days under the Wrist Band administration! This country must be doing terrifically, unbelievably, marvelously well.

That also should make yesterday's Cabinet meeting a collector's item. I mean, it ought to be noted somewhere in a book of records. For that makes ONE Cabinet meeting for every 28 days of the Wrist Band administration.

If we are talking of whiskey here, it must be what connoisseurs call 'rare." What's not rare about any whiskey is, nevertheless, it rarely doesn't make you so drunk, you are likely to miss some appointments.

Still, as I already warned you it was only a rumored meeting. It's possible no meeting was scheduled. Or if one was, it was cancelled unceremoniously. For all you know, Wrist Band did not show up for his own meeting.

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PLEASE believe me that I tried hard to confirm yesterday's intriguing Cabinet "meeting" or at least the mere fact that Wrist Band threatened to hold one. And so I asked a Cabinet member, pointblank, how many meetings he attended so far.

"Three." he said, "including the next one." Does that include the inaugural day meeting of about 37.8 seconds flat? "Yes," the Cabinet member said, rather shyly.

Must we take it, therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the national jury, that this Cabinet is gifted with supernatural powers, each one of them has mental telepathy, and they can indeed communicate with each other through brain waves? I see.

That's why we still have no single page of an economic recovery plan. That’s why we could not prevent the collapse of the stock market, since it was all due, anyway, to "external factors." And that's why Wrist Band complains incessantly about media's "unfair" coverage of his administration.

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ANYWAY, people are getting used to this presidential habit of no-show. It's not only in one isolated case that Wrist Band failed to show up for a scheduled public appearance. But who's counting? He did it again the other day to the 365 Club.

It's just a loose band of news people. They gathered every morning, without fail, at the coffee shop of the Intercontinental Hotel. They've been at it for the past 26 years, or since the very next day that martial rule was imposed in 1972.

Rational and intelligent as those news people were, they still made the mistake of inviting Wrist Band to give a speech on their founding anniversary last Tuesday. Why not? A lot of people, specially the Makati crowd, surely wanted to see him.

Why do you think those business people spent so much on lousy hotel food, if not to listen to Wrist Band in person? Whether he likes it or not, Wrist Band is now the main number in any gathering. Including even his Cabinet's meetings.

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BUT last Tuesday, Wrist Band merely sent word to a ballroom-full of "356 Club" members and friends that he was sorry, something tied him up at the Palace and he could not make it. According to his spokesperson, Gerry Barican, it was the Philippine Airlines case.

It seems that Wrist Band just could not delegate the big PAL task. This is the man who has numerous Cabinet members and Cabinet-ranked presidential advisers. He also has this new breed of mosquitoes called "presidential consultants."

Okay. PAL's closure had such a big impact, Wrist Band just could not spare a few minutes to read a prepared speech. This is a man who needed only three Cabinet meetings in 85 days of his young term, as he battled a crippling economic crisis.

And it still took a "pair" of Palace officials to cover for him. Barican gave the excuse, while Press Secretary Rod Reyes delivered the speech. Dryly. I shall vote for it as the longest nap I ever had in a performance during a dinner.