What do Press Secretary Jesus Dureza and Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon have in common, apart from a widespread perception that both have miserably failed in their jobs? Well, according to some wits who observe the Palace for a living, both may have been fired but they will still retain important (or even bigger) jobs in the Arroyo administration.

It may be argued convincingly that the new positions that await both Dureza and Esperon represent promotions, after all. Dureza will take over as chief presidential legal counsel, while Esperon leaves his current office to become head of the Presidential Management Staff come February, according to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.

Dureza was still busy denying reports of his and Esperon?s removal from their current positions as late as last Tuesday, which seems to show just how out of the loop he already was. When Ermita announced the transfer of Dureza to the post last held by former Leyte Rep. Sergio Apostol, the executive secretary had to make it clear that Dureza himself had requested that he be relieved, citing the need to spend time with his wife, who is suffering from a kidney ailment.

How Dureza?s taking on the job of chief lawyer of the President would give him more time for his family is still unclear, except maybe it will reduce the number of calls he gets on his cellular phone from journalists who want to get the obligatory Palace take on one story or another. But those in the know have long assumed that it was really only a matter of time before the removal of Dureza from the press office, especially since the job of actually speaking for the President had already been delegated to Ermita and deputy spokesmen Anthony Golez and Lorelei Fajardo.

In the six months and change that he?s held the position of chief government flack, Dureza had succeeded in almost completely failing to get the administration?s message across to the media, apart from making enough faux pas on his own to merit his immediate transfer out of the sensitive position that he held. For all we know, as Ermita said yesterday, Dureza will make a better chief legal counsel for President Arroyo than he was as her press secretary, since Dureza is supposed to be a crackerjack lawyer who once topped the Bar exams and who served as president of the Davao chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

But the fact remains that, sick wife or no, Dureza was a poor choice to replace the unflappable Ignacio Bunye, who seems to have truly sought a move to the quieter confines of the Monetary Board after serving with distinction as press secretary almost from the beginning of the current dispensation. Dureza?s tendency to speak (and even to pray) out of turn was what did him in, and perhaps the appointment of former Cebu broadcaster Cerge Remonde to replace him may put the Palace back ?on message,? given Remonde?s background in the ways of media.

Dureza, in his six months as press secretary, can only point to singlehandedly reviving the Charter change issue for the opposition?both by calling it a ?done deal? in Congress and by invoking God?s help to make Mrs. Arroyo stay in office after 2010 in that now-famous Cabinet meeting?and for quoting a non-existent Bloomberg report on the Philippine economy?s ?resilience.? Dureza?s sensational ability to put his foot in his own mouth was what did him in.

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But another thing that Dureza has in common with Esperon is once serving as adviser on the peace process?the job that Dureza actually left six months ago to head up the press office. And Esperon, the just-retired chief of staff of the Armed Forces, seemed to have fulfilled the prophecies of those who warned that appointing a soldier lead the peace process with rebel groups was something like asking George W. Bush if he liked war.

In his equally short stint as head of OPAPP, as the acronym-mad bureaucracy likes to call the office of the peace adviser, Esperon was right at the center of the controversy that surrounded the memorandum of agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front on the so-called ?ancestral domains? being claimed by the Muslim rebels. After a firestorm of criticism centered mainly on warnings about the dismemberment of the country and a Supreme Court declaration that the MoA-AD was unconstitutional, the administration had to back away from the agreement.

The fallout from the memorandum was what ensured that Esperon wasn?t staying long as peace adviser and that he was probably more suited for another position. Given President Arroyo?s well-known propensity not to fire people in her innermost circle (whose members are often merely transferred to other positions), perhaps it should surprise no one that her loyal former chief of both the military and the presidential guard would get the position of Remonde at the Palace clearinghouse known as the PMS.

But another curious move was the appointment of yet another recently-retired uniformed officer?former PNP chief Avelino Razon Jr.?to the OPAPP position. According to Ermita, Esperon himself recommended to President Arroyo that Razon take the position he?s vacating next month. Ermita said that Esperon spoke highly of his PMA classmate Razon, who will reportedly require only a short ?learning curve? to get the hang of the job.

Indeed, during his long career as a police officer, most people have had nothing but praise for Razon. However, whether he will make a good replacement to Esperon as peace adviser?after being quite naturally appointed national security adviser upon his retirement?remains to be seen. The same objections to Esperon at OPAPP could be raised against Razon, and he will need a most acute learning curve, indeed, just to avoid making Esperon?s mistakes during the MoA-AD flap.

But the most recent reshuffling of the Cabinet proves that the President is still sensitive to perceptions of inadequacy among her closest advisers, even if she does have a penchant to look only within her circle to rectify the problem of appointing square pegs to fill round holes. Let?s just hope that more people who haven?t been doing the jobs assigned to them are replaced?and soon, while there?s still time.