The Department of Justice (DOJ) has declared that the Inter-Agency Task Force on Zero Hunger (IATF-ZH) continues to exist despite the abolition of the Office of the Cabinet Secretary (OCS), which had been initially designated as head of the task force.
In a legal opinion issued by Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, the DOJ stressed that “being a completely different entity, the IATF-ZH subsists despite the abolition of the office of its designated chair, i.e. OCS.”
Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Teodoro J. Herbosa earlier sought the opinion after noting the abolition of the OCS by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr..
The defunct OCS was created in 2020 by then-President Rodrigo Duterte.
Herbosa raised the issue because the government’s loan agreement with the World Bank-International Bank required that IATF-ZH to be the project steering committee lead of the Philippine Multisectoral Nutrition Project (PMNP).
Since the DOH is the lead agency of the PMNP, Herbosa asked the DOJ if the functions of IATF-ZH as steering committee lead be transferred to the National Nutrition Council (NNC) Governing Board which the DOH also chairs. He said the membership of the NNC is the same as that of the IATF-ZH’s.
Remulla told Herbosa that “the government has recently recognized and strengthened IATF-ZH when it issued EO (Executive Order) No. 27, series of 2023.”
“Under EO 27, the IATF-ZH was reorganized with the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) Secretary being named as Chair thereof and the Executive Director of the NNC as its Co-Chair, in lieu of the Cabinet Secretary,” Remulla said.
“Further, Section 2 of EO No. 27 expressly states that except as expressly modified, all other provisions of EO No. 101 shall remain in full force and effect,” he added.
EO 101 that was issued in 2020 established the IATF-ZH and designated the OCS as its chair.
“Since the IATF-ZH still exists, its responsibilities, with respect to the PMNP could not be transferred to the NNC,” Remulla said.
Though the loan agreement allows a successor for the IATF-ZH, the secretary said, the fact that the inter-agency task force still exists, “it remains to be lead in the Project Steering Committee for the PMNP, as provided in Paragraph I0(A)(1), Schedule 2 of the Loan Agreement.”