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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Yasay booted out of Foreign Affairs

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PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte will appoint an acting Foreign Affairs secretary to replace the outgoing Perfecto Yasay Jr., who was rejected by the Commission on Appointments Wednesday for lying about his American citizenship, Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella said.

“The Office of the Executive Secretary will communicate with the Department of Foreign Affairs [DFA] by 8 a.m. tomorrow,” Abella said, with an announcement expected soon after that.

DFA spokesman Charles Jose said if there is a need to have an officer-in-charge, Undersecretary Enrique Manalo would be next in line.

“We respect the decision of the CA and will await the President’s appointment of a new secretary of Foreign Affairs,” Jose said in a statement shortly after the CA unanimously rejected Yasay’s confirmation for failing to disclose his American citizenship during an earlier hearing.

A day after that hearing, Yasay insisted that he was a Filipino citizen.

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On Wednesday, Yasay maintained that he did not lie about his citizenship, saying that he merely failed to disclose some information because he was nervous.

“I did not lie. I may not have fully disclosed…but this is normal…you get nervous, you come up with answers you did not fully intend. For that I apologize,” Yasay said.

Jose said Yasay’s failure to win confirmation would have no effect on the country’s foreign relations.

“Confirmation is an internal process and other countries know better than to comment on it,” he said.

“The Philippines’ conduct of foreign relations will continue,” he said. “And our foreign policy remains unchanged under the leadership and direction of our President.”

LAST DEFENSE. Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. makes a last-ditch effort Wednesday to defend his citizenship and other issues during the deliberation on his appointment before the Commission on Appointments which eventually rejected his appointment by President Rodrigo Duterte. 
Ey Acasio

Jose also said any documents signed by Yasay would remain valid because he was effectively the secretary of Foreign Affairs at the time as a result of his ad interim appointment from the President.

Jose said there will be an urgent meeting with all the DFA officials regarding the matter.

In a TV interview on ANC, Yasay maintained that he was not an American but admitted that he was able to acquire US citizenship, which he said was invalidated by his actions afterward.

“Taking my oath does not make me a US citizen if precisely the basis upon which the grant of American citizenship is flawed and is defective,” he said in an earlier interview with ABS-CBN.

When he was questioned about his citizenship during his confirmation hearing in February, Yasay said he did not legally acquire US citizenship.

He later admitted that he was granted US citizenship in 1986 but said he was later disqualified because he had the “preconceived intent of abandoning his US residency.”

He took an oath of allegiance to the United States on Nov. 24, 1986 but returned to the Philippines three months after, in January 1987.

Yasay said he applied for US citizenship after former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was killed in 1983. He said he never expected that President Ferdinand Marcos would be ousted.

Yasay’s rejection was the first time that a nominee for the position of DFA chief failed to get the CA’s nod.

He is also the first Cabinet member appointed by Duterte to be rejected by the bicameral body.

Jose said, after this, the President will select a DFA undersecretary as acting secretary or the Executive Chief may appoint another official from outside the DFA.

Former President Benigno Aquino III in March 2016 tapped Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras to replace then-Secretary Albert del Rosario, who resigned due to health concerns. 

Duterte has already announced that he will replace Yasay and appoint his running mate in last year’s elections, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano as the DFA chief.

Yasay said he will return to his job at the University of Hawaii, where he was employed before being asked to head the DFA.

The 15-member CA ordered Yasay to immediately vacate his post.

Senator Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the CA’s committee on foreign affairs, said all 15 members of the panel present during the executive session voted to reject Yasay’s appointment for being a US citizen and for lying before the commission.

He noted that Yasay violated Sec. 45 of Executive Order No. 292, as amended, otherwise known as the Administrative Code of 1987, which requires that all Cabinet secretaries be citizens of the Philippines.

In an interview with reporters after the closed-door session, Lacson said Yasay was not being forthright in the question and answer portion of the two hearings conducted. Because of this, he said they decided to reject his ad interim appointment.

“He’s [Yasay] been rejected, he was just rejected, he will have to vacate [his office],” Lacson said.

“The President should appoint [someone] even in an acting capacity. There’s a succession, there’s a senior undersecretary who can take over,” he added.

Lacson said the decision of the CA panel showed that the body is not a rubber stamp of Malacañang.

“We all know how close attorney Yasay is to the President and it did not deter the commission from acting independently,” Lacson added.

During the plenary deliberation, he said Yasay failed to prove his Filipino citizenship.

When pressed by Occidental Mindoro Rep. Josephine Sato to answer categorically with a yes or no whether he once became a US citizen, Yasay finally admitted before the CA he became a US citizen in 1986.

Sato noted that when Yasay first appeared before the panel last Feb. 22, he categorically denied that he became an American citizen. After that hearing, the congresswoman said Yasay handed her an envelope containing a certificate of loss of nationality of the US dated June 28, 2016.

The envelope, she said, also contained an affidavit dated Feb. 23, 1993, which states that Yasay was granted US citizenship by the US District Court, district of New Jersey. But the same affidavit also showed his admission that he was “ineligible and disqualified” to become US citizen as he had no intention to reside in the US.

“Mr. Chairman, this clearly shows that he has admitted that at some point in time particularly on Nov. 26, 1986, he was granted an American citizen and up to this very moment, he would tell us now that he never was an American citizen,” Sato said.

“So I just want to categorically again ask him and for him to answer to categorically yes or no whether at one point in time in your life, were you ever an American citizen. Just a yes or no, Mr. Chair,” she added.

Responding to Sato, Yasay said: “I wish I could answer that question with a yes or no but as directly as I could in answering that question, I have always admitted that I was granted US citizenship. That’s my answer. I was granted US citizenship (on) Nov. 26, 1986 but it’s my position that that grant of the US citizenship at that time was void.”

Yasay also apologized for “having inadvertently misled” the CA about his US passport.

“When I denied being issued a US passport before this commission, I have particularly in mind the allegation made by Rappler that I was issued one in 2006, which I can continue to deny for lack of personal knowledge,” he said.

“Let me quickly apologize for having inadvertently misled the Commission on this matter,” he said in his opening statement.

Senator Francis Pangilinan, LP president, said Yasay should submit his proof of any attempts to destabilize the Duterte administration, after he linked his rejection to a plot against the President.

Sato took exception on Yasay’s earlier statements as she was the member of the CA who scrutinized the Cabinet official’s citizenship issues during the first confirmation hearing held last month.

“It pains me that anything and everything that cannot be answered will be attributed to the destabilization plot,” she said.

Yasay apologized to the CA, saying he was not referring to any member of the bicameral appointments body, but to news reports supposedly meant to embarrass him.

“Reports were not only to embarrass me but also to embarrass the appointing authority and maybe this is part of the destabilization effort,” he said.

“I was referring to those from the outside trying to question my citizenship within this commission,” he added.

A Palace official said all appointments and contracts signed by Yasay would remain valid.

“The reason for his rejection is still a legal issue,” said Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo.

Panelo insisted that Yasay, as a secretary-designate who was given an ad interim appointment could represent the government in such dealings, despite questions over his American citizenship.

Panelo said there was nothing the administration could do about the CA’s rejection of Yasay’s nomination.

“I am unhappy to hear about that. Firstly because he is a personal friend, being a classmate in the UP [University of the Philippines] College of Law. Second, he is a good secretary of Foreign Affairs,” Panelo said.

“But if that is the decision of the Commission on Appointments, we cannot do anything about it,” he added.

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