The Administration must be reading Max Soliven

Max Soliven, who has the ear of Malacanang, writes:

If the DILG and the GMA Government don’t really have the goods on Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay – who "refuses" to be suspended – they’d better "whisper" to the Court of Appeals that it quickly resolve the issue and get Makati City defrosted from its present paralysis. Courts, alas, are like leviathans that move in slow motion and there are many "lawyer’s tricks" to delay or derail cases. Every abogado de campanilla has a lot of Whereas and Wherefores tucked in his or her old kit bag.

With Jojo Binay defiantly barricaded in his New City Hall, and newly-imposed "caretaker" OIC Rodolfo Feraren trying to get the business of Makati going again in his bunker in the Old City Hall, nothing can move in Makati. Like our traffic jams, Makati is gridlocked.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronnie Puno, no Shining Knight himself, must have convinced La Presidenta that Binay must be punished for his transgressions (the biggest transgression being that he opposes the President). This, from what I’ve been hearing, is the public perception.

Sure, Binay’s rusty armor – after 20 years of his lording it over Makati – may not be shiny either, but will Puno’s "man" Feraren be better? I don’t mean to scoff at him, or insult him, but the fact is that nobody I know, myself, included, ever heard of him. Yet, he’s being tasked to run one of the country’s richest and most pivotal cities – the virtual Financial Heart of the Philippines.

My unsolicited advice is that our government resolve the Makati Mess pronto – sooner rather than later. The spectacle of Jojo B. holed up in his mini-fortress, and an alternative City Hall attempting to conduct business – a difficult if not impossible proposition since almost every Makati employee and bureaucrat was appointed by Jojo Binay during his two decades of hegemony – demonstrates our political instability to the rest of the world.

And Voila, kumilos kaagad ang court of appeals.