'LEADING THAN MANAGING'

Top-level officials at NEDA have commended Neri's preference for a “more horizontal working relationship” with the management and staff, which they say was what made him work “more easily and directly with people than through structures.” 

“The time that he was in NEDA,” shares the same senior management official, “he was to me more on 'leading than managing' as he left to the career officials in the Secretariat the latter function to exercise more decentrally.”

That, however, did not appeal to many at NEDA who saw how Neri was unlike his predecessors, who were more accessible to the agency's rank-and-file. Not a few NEDA staff have observed how he was not into employee relations, exerting no effort to connect, dialogue, or reach out to them. They say he also wasn't as concerned with the internal operations of the office, both in administrative and personnel matters despite his heavy dependence on their technical outputs.

Says Edwin Daiwey, acting assistant director of the Development Information Staff: “He was more technocratic in the sense that his concerns were more on what the staff produced but less on how they could be motivated to work better in terms of improved remuneration, the working environment, and working relationships.”

In contrast to former directors general, Neri also rarely held meetings with senior officials which would have served as venues to discuss or thresh out important issues affecting the agency.

As such, Neri's term, Daiwey adds, marked the unraveling of the strong teamwork ethic that used to be the hallmark of NEDA. Such a situation had subsequently led to squabbles among his deputies and staffs.

A NEDA 'OUTSIDER'

If the relationship had been somewhat distant and tentative, this was probably because many in NEDA regarded Neri as an “outsider.”

He was, after all, not exactly from academe (read: School of Economics of the University of the Philippines) the way the other previous directors general were. Because he was not an economist, he was also not embedded in the NEDA culture like some of his more recent predecessors (e.g. Felipe Medalla and Dante Canlas) who first worked as deputy directors general before being appointed director general.

Without the benefit of a previous professional working relationship, the NEDA staff were thus wary of their erstwhile boss from the very start. Even then, there was also the added baggage of his long-time association with Jose de Venecia Jr., a Marcos-era consummate traditional politician known for cobbling “rainbow coalitions” in the Lower House during his 12 years as Speaker by offering positions, power and money to win the loyalty and support of congressmen.

That he played politics, engaged with politicians, and is himself a politician begun to dawn on some of the NEDA management officials and staff when he surrounded himself with a retinue of “consultants” who were accountable only to him.

Neri also probably felt his detachment that he had to bring along with him to NEDA people whom he could trust. His consultants, many of whom were not known to the NEDA staff, were like a parallel office which acted as his political arm. At first, some at NEDA appreciated the arrangement as it insulated the staff from politics, preferring not to deal with politicians and just continue to do their work professionally. Later, on instructions by Neri himself, NEDA officials had had occasions to interact with his consultants. Even his meetings with them were recorded as part of his official schedule.

REALPOLITIK, NOT POLITICKING'

The way one director understood it, Neri played politics as a matter of course in public policy. The NEDA Secretariat and other oversight bureaucracies are to exert effort in providing full information to decide policy, he says, and that necessitated engaging with politicians and playing the game of politics.

From his own experience working with him, the CPBO's Vicerra believes Neri played politics not in the sense of politicking, which he says Neri always tried to avoid. “It's more of realpolitik,” he explains, “as he always wants to involve himself in policy issues. And he has his advocacies.”

Doing so may have made the NEDA Secretariat more aware of the nature of public policy in their work, but it also made them vulnerable, admits the same director. “It put the organization and employees unprecedently in an unrequitedly bad light,” he says, though maintaining that the Secretariat has remained nonpartisan, its own standard of integrity and professionalism undiminished by this initiation into politics.

But Neri's pragmatism, the NEDA staff also claim, conflicted with his reformist image. Some would say on hindsight that this probably explains why he is seemingly not appalled by unethical behavior, that is, corruption by way of commissions, extortions, kickbacks and the like, because these make things move or work. Others find it ironic that he wanted reforms yet “still wants to be in the good graces of this government.” Still others comment that since he is a “political animal” himself, it was not surprising that he had been offered bribes as he had admitted.

Of his consultants, estranged friend Rodolfo Noel 'Jun' Lozada Jr., who was one of the whistleblowers in the NBN-ZTE scandal, probably best describes Neri's reform program, which he says is more after adjustments of the system, how to make it work or how to control it to make it work. “He has a very good grasp of the system, both its functional and dysfunctional parts. And from my perspective, he is one of the most knowledgeable persons on how to adjust the system,” Lozada says, adding that Neri is in his elements when he speaks of reforms within the system.