President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed Prospero de Vera as the chairperson of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles announced in an advisory on Saturday along with a slew of other appointments.
De Vera is effectively reappointed to the position he had held until July 21. He started to lead the CHED in 2018 under the Duterte administration, served as CHED commissioner in 2016, then designated officer-in-charge in January 2018 following the resignation of then-chairperson Patricia Licuanan.
In a statement, Cruz-Angeles confirmed the appointment of Raphael Perpetuo Lotilla as Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) and Philippe Jones Lhuillier as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Spain, including the Canary Islands.
The Press Secretary also announced the other appointments:
Benny Antiporda as acting administrator of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA). He was environment undersecretary and later appointed senior deputy administrator of the NIA by former President Rodrigo Duterte. He will also serve as a member of NIA’s Board of Directors.
Franz Josef George Espina Alvarez as Acting President, Chief Executive Officer, and Member, Board of Directors of the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) Exploration Corp.; Rosalia Villegas de Leon as Treasurer of the Philippines (Bureau of the Treasury); Pedro Ramirez Laylo as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the State of Israel; Emmanuel Buenaflor Salamat as Executive Director, National Secretariat of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC); Epimaco Verano Densing III as Undersecretary, Department of Education (DepEd); Ferdinand Galvez Sevilla as President, Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) under the Department of the Interior and Local Government; Monica Prieto Teodoro as Special Envoy of the President to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef); and Alex Quiroz as Chairman of the Governance Commission for Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations (GCG).
Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, chair of the House committee on ways and means, on Saturday welcomed the decision of President Marcos to reappoint De Vera.
“Chair De Vera has been very effective at directing the higher education system towards a more skills-based model. The number of graduates of the service trades sector has grown consistently under his term,” Salceda said.
Under de Vera, Salceda said the number of graduates of education and teaching has also grown.
“So have graduates of engineering and technology. I am confident that he can continue or improve upon that performance, especially in light of the President’s directive that we follow a more German, and therefore more skills-based and technical high education system,” said the House resident economist.
Salceda added that De Vera “can leverage very promising numbers in technical and vocational education. Some 94% of all graduates of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority or TESDA programs can achieve certification level.”
“That very high success rate in TVET means that there is great promise in stronger integration between formal education and TVET programs,” he added.
