FIRING LINE: 2 decisions from whom?

FIRING LINE: 2 decisions from whom?

By Robert B. Roque Jr. l October 15, 2026

While in Singapore, President Bongbong Marcos announced to a quizzing media crowd that his DICT Secretary Henry Aguda is out, and so is his PCO Secretary Dave Gomez. Those two Cabinet exits in a single weekend subsequently raised more questions about the President’s decision-making.

For starters, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla had announced Aguda’s resignation on the radio on Saturday, a full day before the President confirmed it. Marcos admitted the news got out first, blaming “different directions” and uncoordinated timing.

But how does an independent constitutional office happen to know the fate of a Cabinet secretary even before Malacañang was ready to say it? Either the Palace can’t keep its own secrets, or the President isn’t the first to know them. Don’t you think?

Then there’s Gomez, whose removal looks wrapped in even more bull than truth. Marcos had said his press chief was “bypassed” by the Commission on Appointments. But Congress hadn’t adjourned, and an ad interim appointee is bypassed only when the CA fails to act before adjournment.

Add to that, another result, perhaps, of uncoordinated statements: Palace sources said no decision had been made on Gomez’s fate.

So Gomez was fired over a bypass that hadn’t happened, on a rejection nobody had delivered. See the bull now?

And for someone who’s supposedly on the bad side of legislators, how come the House approved the PCO budget under Gomez’s watch in a jiffy? That seems odd.

Maybe Gomez’s real sin was his politics or lack of it?

Which brings us to the question that refuses to go away. Who actually decides these appointments and easing off? It has long been whispered that First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos has more say over appointments than the President.

Nothing in Marcos’s halting, hedging explanations dispels that. Worse, does he even know who is performing and who is failing? Firing a man who delivered, while keeping those who haven’t, suggests not.

With his SWS net rating sliding to -11, 35 percent satisfied against 46 percent dissatisfied, the comparison is unavoidable. This is no longer a Cabinet problem. Six communications chiefs prove the point: you cannot keep replacing the best and brightest and expect different results from the same broken system.

And if the President cannot or will not change that system, then the lame duck may have arrived far earlier than anyone dared say.

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