Friday, October 10, 2008 Arroyo's legal adviser quits post
CHIEF presidential legal counsel Sergio Antonio Apostol has resigned to return to the private sector, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Thursday.
Ermita said Apostol resigned about two weeks ago as he "opted to join the Union Bank board of directors." The government has shares in the bank through the Social Security System.
He said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has yet to name her new legal adviser.
Apostol, who is reportedly planning to run in 2010, was not available for comment.
The 73-year-old official, who served as one of the prosecution lawyers during the impeachment trial of former President Joseph Estrada, was a three-term congressman of Leyte from 1992 to 2001.
Apostol served as senior deputy minority leader in the 11th Congress from July 1998 to January 2001 and majority leader from January to June 2001.
He was first appointed by Arroyo in 2001 as chief executive officer, president and chairman of the board of the Philippine National Oil Company-Energy Development Corporation, which he held until 2004.
He later moved to the United Coconut Planters Bank-General Insurance as chairman of the board from November 2005 to January 2007, before being named as chief presidential legal counsel in October 2006.
Apostol first entered politics in 1959 when he served as councilor of the town of Barugo in Leyte before becoming a Provincial Board member from 1963 to 1967.
He then served as a district judge of Quezon City Court of First Instance Branch 16 from 1969 to 1975 and from 1977 to 1981 and later as executive judge of District Quezon City Court of First Instance Branch 16 from 1975 to 1977.
In 1981 to 1986, he became a member of the City Fiscal of the Ministry of Justice while at the same time serving as chief legal counsel of the Metro Manila Commission and consultant of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) and the Ministry of Human Settlement. (JMR/Sunnex)
