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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Government banker is new finance chief
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Tuesday appointed Land Bank of the Philippines president and chief executive officer Maragrito Teves as new finance secretary vice Cesar Purisima who led several Cabinet officials, mostly from the economic team, in resigning last week and eventually calling for the President's resignation.
Arroyo in a press conference said the appointment of Teves is part of her efforts to restructure and strengthen her Cabinet.
The President reiterated her call to the different sectors to submit names of persons or candidates whom they think should be included in the official family.
"Now that I am restructuring and strengthening the Cabinet, the Cabinet will be given a free hand on governance, while I focus on the fundamental changes that we need to put in place," she added.
Planning Secretary Romulo Neri, the last member of Arroyo's economic managers who opted to stick with the President, welcomed Teves's appointment whom he said is a good choice for the post.
Neri said Teves aside from having a good track record has a long experience in the private sector, government sector and legislative sector.
"I'm sure we'll work well together. He's very capable, he has unquestioned integrity and he's well regarded by both the civil society and the business sector," he said.
Teves, who was congressman of Negros Oriental from 1987 to 1998, was appointed Land Bank head in Sept. 1, 2001. He was also chairman and chief executive officer of Think Tank Inc. from July 1998 to August 2000 and resident manager of the Tolong Sugar Milling Co. Inc. from December 1972 to December 1975.
The 62-year-old Teves was also a delegate to the Constitutional Convention (Concon) from June 1971 to October 1972. He also once served as presidential economic staffer, private sector representative and coordinator of the Economic Coordinating Council and coordinator of the Council of Senior Advisers and Commissioner of the Preparatory Commission on Constitutional Reforms.
Neri said he sees no problem working with Teves or any of the officers-in-charge tapped by Arroyo to temporarily head the departments vacated by the resigned economic managers last week.
He added that he has in the past worked with them already and they're even better than their predecessors, Neri was referring to acting secretaries Mario Relampagos of the budget department, Thomas Aquino of the trade department and finance undersecretary Roberto Tan of the finance department prior to Teves' appointment.
He added that the meeting with the new Cabinet members went smoothly during the Tuesday's National Economic Development Authority (Neda) board meeting in Malacañang.
"It only shows that magaling ang career officials natin (our career officials are good). It is a good setting for a parliamentary system. In a parliamentary system the head of a department is a political appointee while the other officials are all career. We have a very good cadre of career officials," he added. (JMR)
(July 13, 2005 issue)
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