Ochoa believes Roxas will be confirmed as DILG chief this week

Former Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. believes that newly instated Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas will be confirmed within the week.

Ochoa, speaking at the 18th anniversary celebration of National Crime Prevention Week in Camp Crame on Monday, said that he has transmitted the papers of Roxas to the Commission on Appointments.

“Hopefully within this week he might get confirmed, without being presumptuous about the processes in the Commission on Appointments,” he said.

Ochoa said in a separate ambush interview after the event that he sees no problem with Roxas’ appointment because he had previously been confirmed as the Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC).

“They have their procedures but we don’t have any problems because he was confirmed as DOTC secretary. It’s the same requirements so probably we won’t have problems and hopefully it will be processed quickly,” he said.

Roxas is taking over the post vacated by the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo who died in a plane crash off the coast of Masbate with two others last August 18.

He asked the audience, mostly composed of members of the Philippine National Police (PNP), to give their support to Roxas.

“I enjoin you, the men and women of the PNP, to extend to Secretary Roxas the same support you extended to Secretary Robredo,” Ochoa said.

“Secretary [Roxas] says that he has a big “tsinelas” [slippers] to fill, but I believe that, with the PNP behind him, he will be more than enough to fulfill the mandate of his new office,” Ochoa said.