Sunday, April 20, 2008 Villar appointed to COA chief post
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo named Reynaldo Villar as chairman of the Commission on Audit (COA) after vice Guillermo Carague's term expired last February.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Villar's nomination would be submitted to the Commission on Appointments for confirmation.
Bunye said Villar's term would expire on February 2, 2011 or after three years since he assumed the post, initially as acting chairman.
He said while under the Constitution, the chairman of the COA should serve a seven-year term, Villar would only be in office for three years after having served as the first four years as "associate commissioner."
"If he is given a seven-year term, it would mean an 11-year term. But if he started fresh, it is really seven years," he said.
Villar, a lawyer and an alumnus of the Ateneo de Manila University, first entered the commission in 1988 as staff officer II before being promoted to graft investigator. He then moved on as prosecutor and later as human resource management officer.
He later became the head of the COA-Legislative Liaison Office with the rank of assistant commissioner, before being appointed by Arroyo as commissioner on February 4, 2004.
Villar, prior to his stint at COA, was elected and served as board member of Pangasinan from 1980-1986.
He also served as a legal assistant to the governor of Pangasinan in 1968 before becoming a technical assistant to the general manager of the Philippine Virginia Tobacco Administration.
In his 10-year stint as a practicing lawyer, he became a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention and served as Constitutional Law professor at the Ateneo College of Law in 1982. (JMR/Sunnex)
