President Marcos, who was attending the three-day summit of the 43rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Indonesia, has appointed three officials in his Cabinet, Malacañang announced on Wednesday.
Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Undersecretary Hans Leo Cacdac has been officially named officer in charge of the agency, taking the place of the late Susan Ople, who died last Aug. 22 due to complications from breast cancer.
The Palace also announced the appointments of Commissioner Jennifer Pia Sibug-Las as chairperson of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and businessman Jose Lim IV as assistant secretary of Department of Transportation.
The announcement was posted on Wednesday on the Official Gazette website though the date of the appointments was made effective Sept. 4.
Sibug-Las has been NCIP commissioner for Central Mindanao since 2019. She led the agency’s “Oplan Bayanihan” during the pandemic to rescue and bring home thousands of IPs stranded in Metro Manila and other areas.
A Manobo princess with title Bae Limpayen, she represented North Cotabato in the Mrs. Philippines Asia Pacific pageant in 2019, winning the “All Nation” title.
Lim, a businessman based in Davao City, is the husband of Drivers United for Mass Progress and Equal Rights party list Rep. Claudine Diana Bautista-Lim.
Unlicensed agency closed
On his first day, DMW chief Cacdac and DMW officials ordered the closure of RTM Maritime Consultancy Services Corp. in Parañaque City for alleged illegal recruitment activities and unauthorized collection fees.
The closure came after separate complaints filed by former applicants, who chose to be identified as “Ernesto” and “Dindo,” earlier this year. The two complainants said they were promised jobs abroad in exchange for large sums of money despite the jobs never actually materializing, a statement from DMW said on Thursday.
“We cannot allow these unlicensed agencies posing as ‘consultancy firms’ to continue offering supposedly lucrative job postings to our overseas Filipino workers and goading them to pay excessive amounts of money. This is criminal and unconscionable,” Cacdac said.