President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday gave his critics more ammunition for their charge that he condones “recycling corruption,” after he appointed the sacked urban poor commissioner to another government post.
Among five commissioners of the Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor who were fired last year for going on foreign junkets, Manuel L. Serra Jr. was appointed Wednesday as a member of the governing board of the Philippine Coconut Authority.
Another fired PCUP commissioner, Melissa Avanceña Aradanas, a cousin of the President’s partner, Honeylet Avanceña, was also appointed in March as deputy secretary general of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.
Also this year, he appointed former Customs chief Nicanor Faeldon as deputy administrator of the Office of the Civil Defense, after he figured in a scandal in which P6.4 billion worth of shabu from China got past Customs inspectors.
The term of Jose Gabriel La Viña, a board member of the Social Security System, was not renewed over allegations of corruption, but the official was later reappointed as Tourism undersecretary before being transferred to the Agriculture Department.
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque brushed aside as political criticism of the President’s reappointments.
“It’s political season. Expect more statements like these, especially for those seeking reelection,” Roque said of Duterte’s critics.
“But as far as the President is concerned he has fired [at least] 20, all of whom were very close to him.”
But Roque said the President had no intention of firing Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson, even though she defied his order to apologize to actress Kris Aquino over a social media post.
Roque said the former starlet and sexy dancer still enjoyed the trust and confidence of the President.
“She hasn’t been fired. For as long as she hasn’t been fired, she enjoys trust and confidence because all presidential appointees serve at the pleasure of the President,” Roque said.
President Duterte and Special Assistant to the President Christopher Go apologized to Aquino, who was offended by a post by Uson that put her late father, former senator Benigno Aquino Jr., and her late mother, former President Cory Aquino, in a bad light.
But Uson ignored her boss’s order to apologize and instead responded to Aquino that the issue was not about her.
In her post, Uson compared President Duterte’s kiss with a Filipino worker in South Korea to the last senator who was kissed by two women on the last flight he took before his assassination in Manila in August 1983.
Roque declined to say why Uson did not apologize to Aquino despite the order from the President but advised reporters to direct the question at Go, who was privy to the issue.
Also on Thursday, the President named Emilio Aquino the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commision, replacing Teresita Herbosa.
Aquino previously served as one of the commissioners in the five-commissioner SEC. He was the only one appointed by Duterte.