Attempting to undercut the professional foundations that underlie Benigno Aquino III’s team at every turn, relevant or otherwise, political irritants continue to issue calls for across-the-board resignations.

Trees with attractive fruits are often pelted. An attempt was inflicted on the Palace’s new communications group. From where we stand however, Malacañang Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma, the gentleman that he is and one among Aquino’s most competent and lettered, singularly replied with a high albeit humbling note.

For those educated on the permutations of Cyril Northcote Parkinson’s famous dictum, the criticisms hurled are shallow and simplistic.

Parkinson noted that work expands to fill time available for its completion. Developed from a study of British civil service bureaucracies and published in 1955 in “The Economist”, a corollary states that among tasks, the trivial swell to fill the time needed to accomplish it.

Known as the Bicycle Bench Law where Parkinson arrayed debate on constructing a bicycle bench against a nuclear plant, the permutation explains why criticism panders to least common denominators. This propensity for triviality is the affliction behind the criticism of the communications group. The headlines are cases in point.

The law on trivialities explains why commentary on the travails of Kris or hostage-taking matters occupy more column space than news that, owing to the communications group, we now have a president systematically far more responsive than the lying variety we were cursed with.

Unfortunately because Hollywood is today’s great educator, every Tom, Dick and Harry is a hostage management expert. And because blogs are in the periphery of mainstream media, everyone is a journalist. In contrast, following Parkinson’s allegory, few understand a fiscal crisis. Cecile B. de Mille did not make epic movies about accountants.

Note tell-tale contrasts as we deliberately match black against white.

Against scandals ad nauseam, in the economy where it counts, few appreciate that we now have the strongest currency in the region dovetailing this week’s foreign investment inflows and a system-wide increase in foreign exchange where gross international reserves cover 9.5 times short-term external debt thus making our endemic debt infinitely easier to bear.

Institutionalizing a penchant for triviality and catering to colloquialism, for some, those economic achievements are gobbledygook. Likewise, in a turkey-shoot where cowboys point-blankly target resignations, they label the communication group a redundant three-headed hydra.

We disagree. On the accusation of redundancy, analyze the delineations and apply educated discernment. These are clear-cut and do not overlap. Twines do not meet and there is no duplication. The delineations are, in fact, rationale and efficient.

One is clearly a spokesman. His job is to speak for the president. It is his job to stand behind the podium, before microphones with the seal of Malacañang behind him. That he is a lawyer adds to the competence level of pronouncements and assures us that a degree of legality and statutory sieves are constantly applied.

He is not tasked to create the presidential message nor does he manage any government institutional vehicles of communication.

The other is in charge of messaging. This involves crafting the prose and the substance of the message where these are consistent in each of the media employed and, more important, with the thoughts and intentions of the president.

He is not a spokesman. When he speaks, he does not carry the same weight as the official spokesman. But because he might enjoy a critical proximity with the president, then he is uniquely qualified to transform presidential thoughts into presidential verbiage. These fine distinctions are important.

Of the three in the group, we are forthrightly partial to Sec. Coloma. He is in charge of the myriad institutional vehicles through which the government and the president communicates with the public and is effectively made accessible to that same public.

These media outlets and infrastructure include those government facilities that cover radio, television and print, the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) and any other fora he might establish as a presidential communications vehicle. He has executive, administrative and managerial functions over these that enhance and include constant coordination with the media in all its forms. He is not the spokesman nor is he responsible for messaging.

For those functions, Sec. Coloma is uniquely competent, experienced and qualified. Prestigiously lettered, he is both an educator and a technocrat. He was the Dean for executive education at Asia’s premier management institution and was once a university president. He is likewise a Malacañang veteran having headed the Presidential Management Staff and serving as the deputy executive secretary of the Office of the President.

He is not new to the bureaucracy. He was twice an undersecretary, once for the Department of Agrarian Reform and another for the Department of Transportation and Communications.

In this regard, there is indeed clear-cut competence in front, beside and behind the president.