President Benigno S. Aquino III swears in Alfredo E. Pascual as the 20th President of the University of the Philippines

Source: http://rtvm.gov.ph

Rizal Ceremonial Hall, Malacañan Palace
31 January 2011

Alfredo E. Pascual has already taken his oath as the 20th President of the University of the Philippines before President Benigno S. Aquino III on 31 January 2011.

On the same day, President Aquino also led the oath taking ceremony of several appointed officers under the Office of the President, namely: Presidential Assistant II for Climate Change Elisea G. Gozon, Assistant Secretary Cattleya G. Amador, CPLC Assistant Secretary William M. Varias and Office of the Political Adviser Ronald Llamas.

Under the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), the newly appointed officials are Regional Development Council Chairperson for Region V Albay Gov. Joey S. Salceda and Co-Chairperson Fr. Leo V. Casas; Regional Development Council Chairperson for Region VI Capiz Gov. Victor A. Tanco, Sr. and Co-Chairperson Ma. Luisa C. Segovia; Negros Oriental-Region VII Regional Development Council Co-Chairperson Arego J. Melisimo; Regional Development Council Chairperson for Region VIII Leyte Gov. Carlos L. Jericho Petilla and Co-Chairperson Tiburcio A. Morales; Regional Development Council Chairperson for Region IX Dipolog City Mayor Evelyn T. Uy and Co-Chairperson Enrico V. Montano; Regional Development Council Co-Chairperson for Region XI Davao City Vicente T. Lao; Regional Development Council Chairperson for Region XII General Santos City Mayor Darlene Magnolia R. Antonino-Custodio and Co-Chairperson Ramon Floresta; Regional Development Council Chairperson for Kalinga-CAR Gov. Joel Baac and Co-Chairperson Dr. Virgilio C. Bautista; and LEDAC member Ramon R. del Rosario.

President Aquino also sworn into office Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) Chairman Hernani B. Panganiban, Board of Directors Philhealth member Dr. Alex Ayco, Metropolitan Waterworks & Sewerage System Acting Administrator Gerardo A.I. Esquivel, Metropolitan Waterworks & Sewerage System Chairman and Board of Trustees Ramon B. Alikpala, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary for Policy Usec. Erlinda F. Basilio, DFA Undersecretary for Administrator Hon. Rafael E. Seguis, DFA Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Hon. Esteban B. Conejos, PRC Chairman Teresita R. Manzala, POEA Administrator Carlos S. Cao, Jr., Northrail Chairman and Board of Directors Member Jose Martin O. Aliling and Northrail Member of Board of Directors Atty. Daniel L. Henares.

Malacañang Advisory: The December Holidays

The official holiday season starts on December 24 and, excluding a pocket of 3 working days (see bold type), ends on Monday, January 3, 2011.

Friday, December 24 – Additional Special (Non-Working) Day*

Saturday, December 25 – Christmas day; Regular Holiday; NWD*

Sunday, December 26 – NWD

Monday, December 27 – Monday nearest Rizal Day, December 30; Regular Holiday ; NWD*

Tuesday, December 28 – WD

Wednesday, December 29 – WD


Thursday, December 30 – WD

Friday, December 31 – Last Day of the Year; Special NWD*

Saturday, January 1 – NWD

Sunday, January 2 – NWD

Monday, January 3 – WD

* This is in accordance with Proclamation No. 1841 s. 2009, which has been retained as relevant for December this year after deliberation by the Office of the President.

Advisory prepared December 12, 2010. Source: http://www.gov.ph/2010/12/12/advisory-the-december-2010-holidays/

Justice Secretary de Lima stays in Cabinet - Malacañang

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima will stay in the Cabinet after all.

Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda confirmed this Wednesday in a phone patch interview with Malacanang reporters after he spoke with de Lima Tuesday night.

Lacierda said de Lima acknowledged the differences in opinion between her IIRC report with the legal study of Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and Presidential Legal Counsel Ed de Mesa.

Lacierda said President Aquino has emphasized that the nature of the IIRC report is recommendatory and that it is the President’s prerogative to adopt or modify the report. He did so by referring the IIRC report to Ochoa and de Mesa for further study.

Reacting to published reports of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism that de Lima had recommended filing of criminal and administrative charges, Lacierda said “there was no criminal negligence so there can’t be criminal charges.”

To read the rest of this dispatch, which was issued by the Office of the President, please click on this link: http://www.president.gov.ph/news/default.aspx?n=De Lima stays in cabinet, says Lacierda

Commentary and a Progress Report to our readers: On the Issue of the Alumni Regent

On September 8, 2010 an editorial in the Diliman Diary (http://diliman-diary.blogspot.com/2010/09/editorial-unless-3-malacanang-midnight.html) openly questioned the continued presence of the Alumni Regent, Alfredo Pascual, in the Univesity of the Philippines (U.P.) Board of Regents (BOR), since it is the BOR that makes the selection for the next U.P. President, with the first round of voting scheduled to take place on November 17, 2010, and since Regent Pascual has accepted the nomination to be one of the candidates for U.P. President.

 The Diliman Diary questioned the dual role being played by Mr. Pascual, since we made the point that it would confer an undue advantage on Mr. Pascual if he continued to sit in the BOR and was privy to its innermost discussions regarding the suitability of this or that candidate, since it would allow him to tailor-fit his presentation and defense for the final interview before the BOR.

Under the 2008 University of the Philippines Charter (R.A. 9500), the President of the U.P. Alumni Association (UPAA) automatically represents the alumni before the BOR as the Alumni Regent.

Reports reaching us from Quezon Hall state that exactly one day after we published our September 8, 2010 editorial, or on September 9, 2010, Ms. Gladys Tiongco, the UPAA Vice-President, Gladys Tiongco took her oath as Alumni Regent. In the meantime, Mr. Pascual has gone on leave as UPAA President

In our previous editorial, we pointed out that UPAA President Alfredo Pascual needs to resign as UPAA President in order to remove the conflict of interest. While we appreciate the effort of his going on leave as UPAA President, we still find this sadly lacking, and look at this as merely window-dressing the problem with a perceived "solution," as observers will point out that Ms. Tiongco will be under pressure - from even just herself - to vote for her own UPAA President who has merely gone on leave - for U.P. President. The net effect is still the same, as we pointed out in our editorial: the BOR is therefore deprived of one intelligent vote  from one of  its members who could objectively consider the very talented and qualified other ten candidates, aside from Mr. Pascual. The Diliman Diary therefore reiterates its call for Mr. Pascual to resign as UPAA President to remove any possibility of conscious or even subconscious psychological pressure being put on Ms. Tiongco to vote for him to the exclusion of the other ten candidates.

This writer is a lifetime member of the UPAA who participated in voting in the last  UPAA elections. This writer voted for a UPAA President who would fulfill his functions as a UPAA President and Alumni Regent; and not for somebody who would parlay his position of trust and confidence in representing the alumni, only to abandon them for the glitter and allure of the U.P. Presidency.

On a broader scale, we think that this maneuver fits into an overarching strategic design on the part of the "Wednesday Club"-dominated U.P. Administration (See Diliman Diary, September 8, 2010)  to continue its intervention in the composition of the BOR in order to maximize the probability of a candidate member of its choice being chosen as U.P. President. In this regard, we reiterate our call to the three Malacañang regents - that is - Regents Nelia Gonzalez, Abraham Sarmiento and Francis Chua - to resign as they no longer belong to the constituency they are supposed to represent. Since they were appointed as midnight appointees by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo but since the new President, Benigno S. Aquino III has made it his prerogative to rescind these appointments, then they should really resign before the voting takes place for the U.P. President on November 17, 2010. Let's give every candidate a fair and even chance on a level playing field. U.P. deserves something better than a "lutong macau."

Correction:

In our September 8, 2010 editorial we stated that the candidates for U.P. president would have to traipse throughout the U.P. System to attend public fora at the different U.P. campuses which are co-located in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. We were wrong.

The public fora will be only in three campuses: UPLB (Sept 20, Umali Hall), UP Diliman (Sept 24, NISMED) and UP Manila (October 14, PGH Science Hall) from 1:30 to 4:30 pm. The public fora will be beamed through the internet to other campuses.

The Diliman Diary apologizes for the error.

UPDATE, CLARIFICATION AND ADDITIONAL COMMENT

We have been informed that Alumni regent Alfredo Pascual who attended the BOR meeting in Mintal, U.P. Mindanao last August 24, 2010 left the meeting when the deliberations started on the nominees for U.P. President. When he was informed that all the nominees have been accepted, including his nomination, he already informed the board that he was going to go on leave as Alumni Association President and as Alumni Regent. He did not participate in the remaining items of the agenda. 

The Diliman Diary gives Regent Pascual a lot of points for inhibiting himself from BOR deliberations by going on leave. Nevertheless, we still feel that he should have gone the entire distance and not just gone on leave but resigned as UPAA President, and therefore as Alumni regent, as  acting Alumni Regent Gladys Tiongco, a vice-president of UPAA, will be under mental pressure to vote for him for as long as he remains UPAA President, albeit on leave. By not resigning, therefore, the BOR is still deprived of one voting regent who could have more objectively considered all eleven nominees for the position of U.P. President.

(Chanda Shahani is the Editor of the Diliman Diary)

SUCCESS! - The Diliman Diary finally gets copies of the Malacañang appointments of the three U.P. Regents

By Chanda Shahani

The Diliman Diary has finally been able to get copies of the March 2010 "midnight" appointments by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the University of the Philippines (U.P.) Board of Regents (BOR) of Regents Francis Chua, Nelia Gonzales and Abraham Sarmiento from the Malacañang Records Office even as the Office of the Secretary of the University has been acting in very slow motion on the Diliman Diary's requests for the same information.

Quezon Hall's reluctance to disclose copies of the Malacañang "midnight" appointments of the regents before this morning's regular meeting of the BOR is set within the context of several other regents questioning the legitimacies of these three regents. The U.P. Administration is mandated to disclose the action taken by the President in view of the fact that the previous action taken by the BOR in its last February 25, 2010 meeting was to recommend the appointment of these three regents to the President before the March 10 constitutional ban on presidential appointments. But in disclosing the presidential action, Quezon Hall also lays itself open to questions arising from the data contained in the presidential "midnight" appointment papers.

To let our readers get an appreciation of the implications of the information contained in the 2010 Presidential appointments, we have scanned the documents and put them side-by-side with the 2008 scanned Presidential appointments of the same regents (the 2008 copies were obtained during a press briefing held at the College of Social Work and Community Development on March 3, 2010 by the sectoral regents).

Below are the 2010 and 2008 scanned Presidential appointment papers of Regent Francis Chua (Left to right. To see an enlarged image just click on the scan ):

Below are the 2010 and 2008 Presidential appointment papers of Regent Nelia Gonzales (Left to right. To see an enlarged image just click on the scan ):

And below are the 2010 and 2008 Presidential appointment papers of Regent Abraham Sarmiento(Left to right. To see an enlarged image just click on the scan ):

The Diliman Diary's interpretation of the 2010 "midnight" Presidential appointment papers versus the earlier 2008 Presidential appointment papers is influenced by the operational word, "Acting," which is appended to the titles of all the regents when they were appointed in 2008.

In a March 1, 2010 report, Faculty Regent Judy Taguiwalo said she questioned in the February 25, 2010 BOR meeting the validity of the vote taken by six regents to remove Student Regent Charisse Bañez as Student Regent, and replace the duly selected Ezxecutive Director of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) Dr. Jose Gonzales with a replacement, Dr. Enrique Domingo.

Regent Taguiwalo said that the three regents were appointed as "Acting" regents in 2008 and that under Executive Order 292, "acting" or "temporary" regents only enjoyed a one-year term. This means that the "Acting" regents were all former regents when they voted in the February 25 BOR meeting. Since only six regents voted in that meeting and three of them had expired papers, then the results of the votation were null and void.

Other developments:

• The U.P. System's Vice President for Legal Affairs, Atty. Theodore Te has asserted in the website of the U.P. System (http://www.up.edu.ph/features.php?i=190) that the three regents enjoyed two-year and not one-year terms starting in 2008.
• In the February 25 BOR meeting BOR Chairman Angeles stated that the BOR should recommend to Malacanang that the three regents be given regular appointments and it was President Roman who made the motion to do so. This action would be in accordance with R.A. 9500 or the U.P Charter of 2008 which requires that the BOR make such recommendations to the President of the Philippines.
• But the copy of Regent Abraham Sarmiento's 2008 appointment signed by President Arroyo and showed that President Arroyo signed the appointment in September 29, 2008 and, adopting President Roman's and Atty. Te's logic, should expire only this coming September 29, 2010. Thus the submission by the U.P. Administration of Sarmiento's appointment papers for a “midnight” appointment” by President Arroyo before the March 10, 2010 constitutional ban took effect shows that the U.P. Administration publicly disagreed with Faculty Regent's argument that a one-year rule on such appointments was in effect, but privately agreed with her by submitting Sarmiento's papers to the Palace for a regular appoinment, as they had already expired on September 29, 2009. This is supported by the 2010 March “midnight” appointment which stipulates that the appointment is good only until September 29, 2010. It also means that U.P. itself is admitting that Regent Sarmiento was already a former regent when he voted on February 25, 2010 to render the Student Regent a former regent as well, and to vote for Dr. Enrique Domingo as the new Executive Director of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), replacing Dr. Jose Gonzales.
• Regent Francis Chua's appointment was signed by President Arroyo on January 1, 2008, which means that since U.P. already impliedly agreed with Faculty Regent Taguiwalo's one-year argument by submitting Regent Sarmiento's papers for regular appointment, then Regent Chua's term likewise expired on January 1, 2009 and he was a former regent when he voted to remove the Student Regent and Dr. Gonzales.
• Under the one-year rule, therefore, Regent Nelia Gonzales' appointment was signed by President Arroyo on March 18, 2008 and expired on March 18, 2009 and she was also a former regent when she voted to remove the Student Regent and Dr. Gonzales. The application of the one year rule means that every single decision of the BOR, including the removal of the Student Regent, the removal of Dr. Gonzales, and the appointment of Dr. Domingo may be questioned for the period when the terms of individual regents expired; potentially tilting the balance of voting in every instance, and affecting the validity of decisions previously made by the BOR.
• Even if we applied the two-year rule instead of the one-year rule, there still would not have been a majority vote to recommend the three regents to Malacanang because Faculty Regent Taguiwalo said that only five participated in the voting, with BOR Chairman Eduardo Angeles, President Roman and Regents Chua, Gonzales and Sarmiento participating. But of the three Malacanang regents, only Regents Sarmiento and Gonzales were eligible to vote under the two-year rule, as their appointments would not yet be deemed expired; as Regent Chua's tenure would have expired on January 1, 2010 under the two-year rule. Neither did a majority vote exist to remove the Student Regent or remove Dr. Gonzales as PGH Executive Director and replace him with Dr. Domingo, because only four out of the five regents who participated in the voting were eligible to vote.
• Additionally, President Arroyo reappointed Regent Gonzales on March 9, 2010 or nine (9) days BEFORE Regent Gonzales' term expired. This could render President Arroyo's appointment of Regent Gonzalez null and void, and with the March 10, 2010 ban on Presidential appointments already in effect, U.P. will have to wait until the country finishes electing a new President when the presidential elections start on May 10, 2010, before the newly elected President fills up Regent Gonzales' vacant slot with the same or a new appointee.
• Although the March 24, 2010 BOR meeting had not yet begun as of the posting of this dispatch, the issue of the legitimacy of regents' terms of office is an issue that is likely to be extensively discussed by the sectoral regents, such as Faculty Regent Judy Taguiwalo, Student Regent Charisse Banez, Staff Regent Clodualdo “Buboy” Rivera, Alumni Regent Alfredo Pascual and other regents such as U.P. President Emerlinda Roman, the U.P. Legal Office and the affected regents, such as Regents Abraham Sarmiento, Nelia Gonzales and Francis Chua.
• A possible rendering of the February 25, 2010 vote by the BOR as null and void due to the lack of a majority vote taken due to the ineligibility of certain regents to vote means that Student Regent Charisse Banez's removal as Student Regent was null and void and that Dr. Gonzales' removal and Dr. Domingo's installation (in both instances) as PGH Executive director were also null and void.

The Diliman Diary will continue to provide updates to this story as it continues to develop.

(Chanda Shahani is the editor of the Diliman Diary. He finished A.B. Comparative Literature from U.P. Diliman)

BREAKING NEWS: Three (3) Malacañang Regents reappointed to the U.P. Board of Regents

Quezon Hall, U.P. Diliman

By Chanda Shahani

After several weeks of tense waiting for different groups contesting the positional legitimacies of several regents on the University of the Philippines (U.P.) Board of Regents (BOR), the Fat Lady has finally broken out into song.

The Malacañang-based Office of Executive Secretary Leandro Mendoza has confirmed today to the Diliman Diary that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has signed several "midnight" or last-minute appointments for three regents to serve on the U.P. BOR before the constitutional ban on the President signing appointments kicked in on March 10, 2010.

Here are the details:

• Regent Francis Chua's appointment was signed by President Arroyo on March 1, 2010 for a period of two (2) years.
• Regent Abraham Sarmiento's appointment was signed by President Arroyo on March 9, 2010 but good only until September 29, 2010.
• Regent Nelia Gonzales' appointment was signed by President Arroyo on March 9, 2010 for a period of two (2) years.

In a March 1, 2010 report, Faculty Regent Judy M. Taguiwalo previously raised the issue of the legitimacy of the three Malacañang appointed regents, during the February 25, 2010 BOR meeting, considering Regents Sarmiento, Gonzales and Chua were appointed as "acting" regents on September 29, 2008, March 18, 2008 and January 1, 2008 respectively by President Arroyo.

Regent Taguiwalo said that she put her objection on record during the February 25, 2010 meeting to the participation of the three Regents in BOR meetings after their respective terms expired after a period of one year.

Despie the March 2010 “midnight” appointments of President Arroyo for the same regents to serve again on the BOR, what is sure to be hotly contested in several courts of law are the decisions made by the BOR based on the votes cast by the three regents during the interregnum, or the period between when the regents' terms expired in 2009 and when they were renewed in March 2010.

The U.P. Administration is claiming that a unanimous vote of the BOR on February 25 resulted in the removal of PGH Executive Director Dr. Jose Gonzales, his replacement with Dr. Enrique Domingo, and the approval of a draft resolution voiding the legitimacy of Student Regent Bañez's right to vote from December 18, 2009 onwards on the grounds that she is no longer a student and therefore no longer a Student Regent.

All of these developments may be additional fuel for what is already a blazing fire within U.P. For example, taking the interregnum or the critical period into account when the “acting” regents with expired terms had not yet received their “midnight” appointments, then nine regents attended the February 25 BOR meeting but three regents - Staff Regent Clodualdo Cabrera, Faculty Regent Judy M. Taguiwalo and Alumni Regent Alfredo Pascual abstained from voting leaving six regents who particpated in the voting. However three regents had expired appointments at the time of the voting, meaning that only three regents with valid papers voted on February 25 which does not constitute a majority of the BOR.

These are the kinds of isues which may be taken up by Student Regent Charisse Bañez, who has filed a case against the U.P. Administration with Branch # 215 of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court or even Executive Director Gonzales, who said he is consulting his lawyers on his case, possibly leading to a second lawsuit being filed against the U.P. Administration.