February 17, 2020 | 8:49 pm
Musings | By Oscar P. Lagman, Jr.
On Feb. 3, Undersecretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Eliseo Rio, Jr. told CNN Philippines, “I filed my resignation and (am) awaiting acceptance of the President.” He said he sent his letter to Malacañang on Jan. 31.
He gave as the reason for his resignation his conflict with other officials in the department. “I cannot work with the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries. I’m supposed to be Undersecretary of Operations, but they are not involving me in decisions. Operations and intelligence work are very close, so whatever intel we get, Operations must be involved. I might as well get out, the salary being given to me would be a waste.”
Mr. Rio also questioned the need for a P400 million confidential fund for the agency in 2019 — an amount which DICT Secretary Gregorio Honasan put in the DICT’s budget when he was still a senator. “As far as I’m concerned, DICT does not need any confidential funds. It is not our mandate to conduct surveillance and intelligence activities. I would rather have it given to the National Bureau of Investigation and the police,” Mr. Rio said.
In an interview over ANC on the same day, Mr. Rio said, “I feel that I’m no longer needed in DICT. Now I’m 75. I thought that now would be time to really spend my time with my family. Secretary Honasan has brought in young people and maybe they should be given more chance to work.”
Mr. Rio is a licensed electronics and communications engineer. He placed 4th in the 1971 board exams. He held various positions in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, including as head of the AFP Research and Development Center Communication-Electronics R&D Group, group commander of Military Intelligence Group 21 and Electronics Technical Intelligence Group of the Intelligence Service, Assistant Chief of Staff for Communication, Electronics and Information System of the Philippine Army, Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Communication, Electronics and Information Systems Service, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications, Electronics and Information Systems. He retired from the Armed Forces as Brigadier General in October 2000.
Because of his extensive background in Communications, he was appointed to the National Telecommunications Commission in 2001 and, beginning September 2017, was the DICT officer-in-charge. On Oct. 10, 2017, following the resignation of Rodolfo Salalima as DICT Secretary, he was appointed officer-in-charge of the department upon the instructions of President Duterte. He was then elevated to Acting Secretary of the department in May 2018. People expected him to be appointed Secretary of DICT. To their surprise, the President announced that Mr. Honasan, who is not an electronics engineer nor a communications professional, would be the DICT Secretary upon the expiration of his term as senator in June 2019.
President Duterte still has to act on Mr. Rio’s resignation. If the President accepts it, he would be the first member of the Duterte Cabinet to resign on the basis of irreconcilable difference with his superior. He would be included in that honorable class of past Cabinet members who resigned on the basis of principle: Marcos’ Executive Secretary Rafael Salas, Arroyo’s Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo, Secretaries Corazon Soliman of Social Welfare, Florencio Abad of Education, Cesar Purisima of Finance, Juan Santos of Trade and Industry, Emilia Boncodin of Budget and Management, Rene Villa of Agrarian Reform, and Benigno Aquino III’s Transportation and Communications Secretary Jose de Jesus.
However, on Feb. 7, Messrs. Honasan and Rio released a joint statement. Here are excerpts of it:
“We, Secretary Gregorio B. Honasan II, and Undersecretary Eliseo M. Rio, Jr., issue this statement to put to rest any question on the integrity of the Department of Information and Communications Technology.
“We assure the Filipino people and the members of our DICT family that we have reassessed the situation, and have mutually agreed to settle our differences. The Confidential Expenses and its use in support of your DICT’s mandate are not in question. In fact, it was Undersecretary Rio who proposed the inclusion of the Confidential Expense item in the 2019 General Appropriations Act. Let it also be clarified that Undersecretary Rio’s resignation was due to personal reasons, and not due to any rift with the Secretary. The use of the Confidential Expense is for lawful monitoring and surveillance of systems and network infrastructure only.
“Undersecretary Rio stands behind the Secretary and gives his full support to your DICT’s programs and projects.”
It is supposed to be a joint statement of Mr. Honasan and Mr. Rio but it reads like the statement of Mr. Honasan alone as it refers to Mr. Rio as a third person. Parts of the statement are contradictory. “Undersecretary Rio’s resignation was… not due to any rift with the Secretary” runs counter to “We have ….mutually agreed to settle our differences.” That Mr. Rio resignation was due to personal reasons is in conflict with what Mr. Rio had told media. In the interview with CNN Philippines he said, “I cannot work with the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries…. they are not involving me in decisions. I might as well get out” To ANC he said, “I feel that I’m no longer needed in DICT. Secretary Honasan has brought in young people and maybe they should be given more chance to work.”
The use of the Confidential Expense for lawful monitoring and surveillance of systems and network infrastructure is precisely what Mr. Rio questioned. The sentence “Undersecretary Rio stands behind the Secretary” betrays who the real writer of the statement is.
Mr. Rio said that if President Duterte turns down his resignation, he would accept the position offered him by Secretary Honasan: Head of the National Broadband Plan Backbone and Free Wi-Fi Internet Access in Public Places. There is a Chinese idiom “Ride a tiger” which means that once one finds himself in a dangerous situation, getting out of it can be detrimental to one’s career or aspirations, even threatening to his life. It comes from the phrase “he who rides the tiger is afraid to dismount or finds it hard to get off it.” Has Mr. Rio realized the consequence of resigning from the Duterte Cabinet for the reasons he has stated that he has decided to stay on the back of the tiger?
However, US President John F. Kennedy left words of wisdom regarding riding a tiger. On his inauguration as president, he said, “Remember that in the past those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”
Source: https://www.bworldonline.com/has-dict-undersecretary-rio-decided-to-stay-on-the-tiger/