MALACANANG on Thursday issued a revised copy of the first Memorandum Circular (MC) of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
In a press briefing, Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Malacanang has recalled the first MC directing that all non-career executive officials of the previous government to leave their posts.
In the new order, those occupying career executive services (CES) could continue their duties until July 31, pending the acceptance of their resignations or the finding of replacements in their respective post.
All presidential appointees under the co-terminus status are still deemed resigned as of June 30.
Those contractual and casual employees whose appointments expire on June 30 shall continue their services until July 31 unless otherwise terminated or renewed by their hiring agencies.
In cases where the head of agency resigned on June 30 and no replacement has been appointed, the most senior official shall take over as officer-in-charge and will stay until July 31.
Lacierda declined to admit that they had mistakes in issuing the first memorandum, saying that they just had to do some “fine tunings”.
He said he had received a lot of text messages raising concerns about the status of their employment prompting them to polish up the language of the MC.
He clarified that the amendment was not about the midnight appointments, citing that an executive order will be issued to address the case.
Hot seat
Lacierda was in a hot seat during his first press briefing.
One reporter repeatedly tagged the first MC of President Aquino as “blooper” because of several flaws of its provisions, which Lacierda strongly defended.
“Your description that this document is a blooper is entirely your own. I do not agree,” he said.
He appealed for consideration from the media and the public since they are still in the process of learning the ins and outs of government service.
Before the briefing, Lacierda also got the irk of some members of the Malacanang Press Corps (MPC) when he was not able to hold his press briefing on time.
He was supposed to conduct a briefing about some clarifications on the memorandum circular at 10:30 a.m. but it was delayed for hours.
Lacierda explained that he would have wanted to hold the briefing when he formally received the revised memorandum circular.
But around 11 a.m., he was seen having a phone interview with a television news channel about the memorandum which confused the members of the press waiting for him in Malacanang.
An hour and half after his interview, he went to the working press area to personally apologize to the press for the delay of his briefing.
As some journalists accepted Lacierda's apology, there were some who expressed annoyance with the delay in the briefing.
Lacierda repeatedly apologized to the members of the press saying that he would entertain other interviews if he has committed one to the MPC.
Asked to describe his first day in office, Lacierda said: “Very tiring and learning experience. My learning curve has just gone up drastically.” (Jill Beltran/Sunnex)