THERE ARE, of course, bound to be turf wars fought by factions in any government, with the melees sometimes resulting in a skewered policy or two. But there has probably never been this many players before, and this many people who do not have official accountability but who are nevertheless participating in the business of running a country. It is bad enough that officials who should be helping the President keep order in the government are instead contributing to the disarray with all their bickering. But the situation can only deteriorate to downright chaos when officials also have to contend with presidential friends who seem to have the propensity of making suggestions on matters they should not have any say on.

To be sure, some of the advice they give may be solicited, albeit over a plate of pulutan. Some of them may even be well intentioned, and are meant to be no more than opinions offered to a friend who is asking for them. The problem, however, begins once the recipient takes these and without much thought assumes them to be correct. At the very least, it is a rather delusional way of making decisions, since there really is no processing of ideas that takes place. In government, it is also a method fraught with serious risks.

FORMER Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) chair Karina David said it best in her October 15, 1999 resignation letter to the President. Although she was actually referring to Estrada’s large assortment of presidential advisers, consultants and assistants, David was making a point about the dangers of relying on people who “have no line responsibility, yet enjoy direct personal access” to the President. This could very well also describe members of his Midnight Cabinet, as well as friends who have made it a habit of hanging around the Palace grounds during the day. Wrote David: “(The) more aggressive among them can actually subvert the authority of your own line people. Not being integrated into the system, they may often give you distorted information or, worse, engage in manipulation for self-serving interests.”

David did not say so directly in her letter, but it appears that she considers herself a victim of such a set-up. Four days before her resignation, she had received a call at midnight, informing her of a luncheon meeting at the Palace the next day. She was not told of the agenda. When she got there, she found a handful of movers and shakers, not all of them officials. These included businessmen Jack Ng and Jose Luis “Sel” Yulo, both members of the nocturnal Cabinet. The officials were de Jesus, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, National Housing Authority general manager Anthony F. Leynes and Wilfredo Hernandez, president of the Home Insurance and Guaranty Corp. (HIGC). Leynes is widely known in the housing industry to owe his position to Guia Gomez.

The group was soon joined by a President concerned about his declining popularity. A few days before, Pulse Asia had briefed Malacañang on the results of its survey for the month of September. The report wasn’t good: The President’s approval rating had plunged 21 percentage points, from 65 percent in May, to 44 percent.

It was agreed that the housing sector would play a crucial role in getting Estrada’s approval ratings back up, and that David would “whip” all the housing agencies into shape. The meeting finished, David left. But as she was nearing the sentry gate, she got a call on her cellular phone informing her that PAG-IBIG head Mel Alonzo had been replaced. PAG-IBIG, a state-run housing loan agency, falls under the office headed by David. It may have struck her as odd that she had not been told beforehand of such a decision.

David marched back into the presidential residence, where the luncheon meeting had just been held and where PMS chief de Jesus holds office. De Jesus confirmed that Alonzo had been terminated. Realizing that there was no reversing the decision, David requested to allow the PAG-IBIG head to resign. Ramon Palma-Gil, a recommendee of Caloocan’s Baby Asistio, a frequent late-night visitor at the Palace, replaced Alonzo

The next day, Yulo, another erstwhile nocturnal adviser, called up David to inform her that he was faxing the Executive Order (EO) creating the Presidential Commission on Mass Housing (PCMH), with him as chair and David as member of the board. The new body essentially had the same functions as HUDCC. But the EO was not all that David’s fax machine spat out; there was also an appointment of Yulo as presidential adviser on housing, a position also held by David.

In her letter, David noted that “(parallel) structures without a clear center of accountability create confusion and instability.” She also said, “A shelter sector with two heads can only result in everyone working at cross-purposes, generating confusion, intrigue and suspicion.”

In addition, David observed, “Executive Orders vitally affecting the conduct of government need to be carefully studied. I was informed about our…lunch meeting only at midnight of the day before. In that meeting, there was a general agreement that we would work with the Presidential Management Staff towards the eventual reorganization of the shelter sector. There was no mention of an Executive Order. And yet one was signed in the evening of the same day. By the afternoon of October 13, despite my having raised concrete issues against many defective portions of the EO, His Excellency read a press statement that contained even more than what was in the EO.”

Yulo, however, would not last even a month. He resigned soon after a newspaper controlled by shadowy Estrada pal Mark Jimenez reported that he has nine estafa cases and is the subject of an arrest warrant arrest for issuing a bouncing check. Palace insiders say the ouster of Yulo was also on the Zamora bloc's list of recommendations to reverse the decline of the President’s popularity. The list was apparently drawn up after the media outcry over David’s resignation, and was meant partly as a move against de Jesus, who was seen as having a hand in the way David had been treated. But the attempt to hit back at de Jesus may have backfired. When Yulo resigned, she was named as temporary co-chair of the PCMH, together with Hernandez of the HIGC.

The anti-Dragon Lady faction, though, then waged a media blitz against de Jesus, feeding reporters and editors a story about a petition, allegedly signed by 30 people, to oust her. The tale turned out to be false.

Meanwhile, Malacañang officials say that after his approval rating dropped, the President has been waking up early, which could mean reduced sessions with his Midnight Cabinet. He has even scheduled regular meetings with his official Cabinet.