A SPOKESMAN for incoming president Rodrigo Duterte confirmed Tuesday the addition of three more members of the new Cabinet.
Duterte tapped former North Cotabato governor Emmanuel Piñol to lead the Agriculture Department and named Las Piñas Rep. Mark Villar as Public Works and Highways secretary, said spokesman Salvador Panelo.
He also said former Bureau of Immigration chief Andrea Domingo would be tapped to head the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.
Panelo also confirmed that efforts to recruit Carlos Dominguez, Duterte’s chief campaign fundraiser, as Finance chief had failed.
“It seems that Sonny Dominguez rejected the offer to be Duterte’s Finance secretary,” Panelo said in a a radio interview over dzMM.
Panelo, who has been tapped to be the next press secretary, said Duterte ally Arthur Tugade and Perfecto Yasay both accepted offers to head the Transportation and Communications and Foreign Affairs departments, respectively.
Panelo said no Trade secretary has been chosen yet.
Piñol said Duterte’s order was for him to rid the corruption-laden Agriculture Department and its agencies of syndicates.
“His marching orders were very clear: Ensure available and affordable food for the Filipinos and “No Corruption in the DA,” Piñol said. “The task is gargantuan. It is not going to be easy to produce food for 105 million Filipinos.”
“While I did not lobby for the position, I would be lying if I said that I was not happy with the appointment,” he added.
Piñol is set to replace outgoing Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala, whose six-year stint failed to deliver President Benigno Aquino III’s promise of rice self-sufficiency.
Piñol was the brains behind Duterte’s food security blueprint launched during the campaign.
Villar, who was reelected to represent Las Piñas, confirmed he had accepted Duterte’s offer to head the DPWH.
“I confirm that presumptive president Rody Duterte asked me to be his DPWH secretary and after consulting with my family and constituents, I have decided to humbly accept his offer,” he said in a statement.
The Partido Demokratiko ng Pilipinas-Lakas ng Bayan, Duterte’s political party and the Nacionalista Party headed by Villar patriarch former Senate president Manny Villar on Monday joined forces to create a coalition within Congress to push the legislative agenda of the president-in-waiting.
The signing of the “coalition for change agreement” was done after Duterte’s first press conference after the May 9 elections.
Despite the family’s real estate business, Villar said there was no conflict of interest in the DPWH post.
The Villar camp added that it has yet to decide who will replace him as the Las Piñas representative.
Former Defense chief Gilbert Teodoro, who served under the Arroyo administration, asked for more time to consider a return to the department.
”I was surprised. I thought we would just meet and I would offer my congratulations. But then (Las Piñas representative) Mark Villar and I were offered the posts,” Teodoro told reporters.
“I answered that it’s not a decision I can make alone. I have to consult my family and a lot of commitments I had and have made, and I will have to come back to him with a decision,” he added.
In Davao City, many have sent feelers to the Duterte camp to get positions that are still up for grabs.
Political butterflies and tycoons who filled the hotels in the city congratulated Duterte on his victory.
Among those spotted were former Laguna governor ER Ejercito, outgoing Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla, outgoing senator Teofisto Guingona III, incoming Cavite Gov. Boying Remulla, former Cavite congressman Gilbert Remulla and former Ilocos Sur governor Chavit Singson.
On Monday, Duterte said he was planning to appoint former secretary Jesus Dureza as presidential adviser on the peace process, Silvestre Bello III as chief peace negotiator with the National Democratic Front, Salvador Medialdea as executive secretary, and Peter Laurel as education secretary.
He said he wanted his running mate Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano to head either the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Department of Justice, but the latter is banned for a year from accepting executive posts after he lost the vice presidential race.
On Tuesday, the National Press Club said it looked forward to “better days” under the leadership of Duterte but also urged the incoming chief executive to reconsider his choice for press secretary.
“With his victory in the just concluded presidential election already a foregone conclusion and which is now merely a matter of formality by way of his inauguration several weeks from now, we join President Rody in his call for national unity,” said NPC president Paul Gutierrez of People’s Tonight.
“Criticism being thrown against President Rody this early by some quarters is unnecessary and undeserved. We urge our colleagues in the profession and the public to give him the so-called ‘100 days honeymoon period’ that have been accorded to all past presidents as a matter of courtesy,” Gutierrez added.
Nevertheless, Gutierrez said media are hopeful that Duterte would also prioritize the resolution of media killings and other cases of media suppression that were all simply ignored and neglected by the Aquino administration.
“Along this line, we call on President Rody to strongly reconsider his reported plan to appoint Attorney Salvador Panelo as press secretary.
“While we have nothing personal against attorney Panelo, the fact of the matter is that he is a lawyer of the Ampatuan clan, the principal suspects in the 2009 massacre in Maguindanao where 34 of our media colleagues were among the victims…
“Definitely, members of the press would find it hard to interact, and work with, a press secretary whose main client are the suspects in the wholesale murder of the members of the press that has outraged the entire world,” Gutierrez said.
The Palace on Tuesday said it was confident that the incoming administration would find no irregularities once it took over.
“We are very confident that any effort to evaluate and assess the propriety, regularity, veracity of all public financial and budgeting transactions will pass scrutiny,” said Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma, Jr., said during a press briefing in Malacanang. –With Sandy Araneta
