Thursday, October 09, 2008 Defensor is new PNR chief
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo named defeated administration senatorial bet Michael Defensor as acting chairman of the Philippine National Railways (PNR).
Aside from Defensor, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the President also appointed Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo as chairman of the Presidential Task Force for the Mindanao River Basin Rehabilitation Project (MRBRP) and Sancho Buqing as regional director of National Commission on Indigenous People.
Ermita also announced the promotion of Senior Superintendent Jose Mamaril of the Bureau of Fire Protection as Chief Superintendent.
Mamaril is the BFP chief directorial staff, while Buquing is a professor at the Ilocos Sur Polytechnic University.
Quevedo served as president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in 2000 and 2003.
Defensor, prior to his new assignment, served as head of a task force that administered the opening of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal (Naia) Terminal 3. He also served as Arroyo's presidential chief of staff before he quit to run for senator in 2007.
He was the congressman of Quezon City when he was first tapped by Arroyo as head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council. He was later named as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Defensor is the fifth losing administration senatorial candidate to be given a government position by the President.
The four others are former senators Ralph Recto as head of the National Economic and Development Authority and Vicente Sotto III as chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board, former Surigao del Sur congressman Prospero Pichay as chairman of the board of the Local Water Utilities Administration, and former Ilocos Sur governor Luis "Chavit" Singson as deputy national security adviser. (JMR/Sunnex)
