In Roxas presidency: Abad may stay, Kim maybe not
If the “daang matuwid” were to continue with a Mar Roxas win next year, will he retain key personalities who helped President Aquino keep his administration on the straight path?
The Inquirer posed the question on Monday to two known Aquino and Roxas allies, Budget Secretary and Liberal Party stalwart Florencio Abad and Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares. Both were appointed to their posts by Aquino in 2010 when he assumed the presidency.
Will Abad seek higher office in 2016? “Ayoko (I don’t want to),” he replied.
Since Roxas has yet to find a running mate, could he be tapped to run for vice president? Highly unlikely, Abad said.
“With all the dirt thrown around me every day, I might get negative approval ratings,” he said.
“But I wouldn’t mind returning to the government if we have a good president,” he added. “I wouldn’t mind returning to the executive.”
Under Abad’s watch as budget secretary, the Aquino administration won approval of its annual budgets early.
But he was also accused of being behind the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which the Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional.
The DAP moved government funds deemed as savings around to projects and politicians favored by the administration.
For her part, Henares said she would go on vacation and rest when she steps down from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
Asked if she would accept an invitation to remain at the BIR from Roxas, Henares told reporters on the sidelines of the agency’s 111th anniversary celebration recently: “Hindi ko alam, tanungin ninyo siya (I don’t know, ask him). I have no idea, I don’t want to be presumptuous,” she said.
In her first job in government as governor in the Board of Investments, Henares had then Trade Secretary Roxas for her boss. She supported Roxas in his initial plan to run for the presidency in 2010.
In his State of the Nation Address, President Aquino heaped praise on Henares, saying that under her watch the administration “only needed five years to match, surpass and almost double our predecessor’s record high… without imposing new taxes, as promised, apart from sin tax reform.”
In general, Aquino’s economic managers have been deemed to have done pretty well. The government trumpeted an average annual growth rate of 6.2 percent from 2010 to 2014, the highest in the last 40 years.
For Henares, however, six years at the BIR is enough.
“I was given the privilege to serve and do something. I’m sure there are a lot of other people who also want to have that privilege. So if there’s someone else who’s willing to do it, and can do it, why not,” she said.
Henares said she had no plans of running for public office next year.
“The only plan I have is to try to finish as many of the reforms that we have [introduced],” she said.
To Abad, however, Henares could do even better as an Ombudsman, noting that women were now in difficult positions, among them, the Chief Justice, the current Ombudsman, the justice secretary and the chief peace negotiator.
