Intramuros gets new, young administrator

President Aquino has appointed the former chief of staff of Philippine Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Chairman Andres Bautista the new administrator of Intramuros.

Lawyer Marco Antonio Luisito V. Sardillo III assumes the post of Intramuros Administrator on Monday. At 33, he becomes the youngest head of the agency in its 34-year history.

“It’s another way of serving,” Sardillo, who was executive director and chief of staff of Bautista from September 2010 to June 2012, said when reached by phone.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte announced his appointment over government-run radio dzRB on Sunday.

Sardillo, whose term is coterminuous with the President’s, said drawing up a masterplan for the development of Intramuros would be his top priority, apart from its preservation and conservation.

And this would entail finding heritage sites and “putting them to good use,” he said.

“It’s important to add a sense of order to Intramuros because it’s the first stop of tourists. Intramuros has to be cleaned up,” Sardillo said, observing that sari-sari stores lined the roads.

After graduating from the Ateneo de Manila University Law School in 2006, Sardillo worked for six months at the Platon Martines law office. After a year, he flew to Singapore on a scholarship to complete a master’s degree in public policy. When he came back, he was invited by the PCGG chair to work for him.

After leaving the PCGG, he did consultancy for the Asian Development Bank.

He also had teaching stints in the law schools of Far Eastern University and De La Salle University. Two years ago, he went back to the Ateneo Law School to teach. He is still there.