No changes in Cabinet unless CA forces it – Rody
MANILA, Philippines - Despite infighting among some of his appointees, President Duterte sees no need for changes in the Cabinet unless the Commission on Appointments (CA) would reject another of his officials.
“No more, except if the reason is not of our making, like if an official is not confirmed by the Commission on Appointments,” Duterte said on Monday before leaving for Saudi Arabia, the first leg of his three-nation Middle East tour.
The President will also visit Bahrain and Qatar.
The CA had rejected Duterte’s appointment of Perfecto Yasay Jr. as foreign affairs chief.
The President stressed it is not his style to call lawmakers to ask them to confirm his appointees. He said he is strongly against meddling in the affairs of other branches of government.
“You can ask anybody, any congressman, any Cabinet member now, any military man now here. Ni minsan hindi ako tumatawag (Not even once did I call them),” he said.
But as commander-in-chief, Duterte said he called up Armed Forces chief Gen. Eduardo Año once to call off the ceasefire with communist rebels after receiving reports they had brutally killed soldiers in Mindanao.
“There was only one time I called General Año, when the communist started to break the ceasefire. So sabi niya, ano ba, retain (He asked if we retain the ceasefire)? Inunahan ko na, sabi ko ngayon na (I had to preempt him, I said now), we resume the offensive,” he recalled.
Earlier, Duterte announced his sacking of undersecretary Maia Halmen Valdez for her allegedly trying to stop the enforcement of a rice import moratorium.
After sacking Valdez, Duterte said he would not hesitate to fire an official at the slightest hint of corruption.
In a radio interview Monday night, Valdez denied Duterte’s claim that she had authorized rice importation, saying she had no authority to issue import permits to begin with.
“It is the NFA (National Food Authority) council that authorized the importation of rice and it is NFA administrator Jason Aquino who signs import permits,” she said.
Valdez worked for Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr., who chairs the NFA council.
Evasco reportedly relied heavily on her, allowing her even to sit in for him at council meetings.
She disputed Duterte’s claims just hours after the President reiterated his accusation against her in Davao City on Monday.
The President also reiterated his order stopping rice importation at this time, when farmers are reportedly set for a bumper harvest.
Evasco, as NFA council chairman, has extended the deadline for importation by private traders by three months, from March 31 to June 30.
He made the extension after NFA’s Aquino and two of his underlings refused to process importation documents he had requested for signing before the March 31 deadline.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) is urging the NFA council not to extend the deadline for rice imports under the minimum access volume (MAV) mechanism, citing the onset of the harvest season.
Under MAV, the Philippines is committed to allow the importation of around 800,000 MT of rice every year at a reduced tariff.
FFF president Leonardo Montemayor said that last year, the NFA distributed quotas to private importers for around 600,000 MT of MAV imports on the condition that the imports should arrive in the country on or before Feb. 28, 2017.
Only 400,000 metric tons actually arrived on time, and quota holders are now lobbying the NFA council to extend the deadline so that they could bring in the balance of 200,000 MT, he said.
Montemayor, a former agriculture secretary, pointed out that extending the deadline would benefit only a few moneyed importers at the expense of millions of rice farmers who have started harvesting their dry season crop. – With Jess Diaz, Louise Maureen Simeon
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