ENERGY Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla says that in spite of being bypassed by the Commission on Appointments, he is holding on to his job as secretary of energy unless President Benigno Aquino asks him to step down.
“I was appointed. I did not apply for it. When I took the job, it was the President who asked me, nobody else asked me to take the job. As long as I have his trust, I will continue,” Petilla told the Inquirer in an interview here on Saturday.
After being bypassed anew by the Commission on Appointments last week, Petilla said he believed he still had President Aquino’s trust and confidence and would be reappointed.
“But if he asks me to go, then I will go. You know, I am not a clinger,” Petilla said, noting that Cabinet members who finally got the nod of the joint congressional Commission on Appoints last week had been bypassed several times over the last four years. “Perhaps, I will get the confirmation in two-and-a-half years from now.”
Petilla was appointed head of the Department of Energy in 2012.
He said also that he had no intention to personally meet with Sen. Serge Osmeña, who blocked his confirmation.
“Why? I have nothing to explain to him. I guess what I am doing are the right things because a lot of people are saying to me, “Do not leave.’ I am really working for the people and not for any particular person or particular company.”
Osmeña claimed that Petilla was not performing well as secretary of energy, blaming the former governor of Leyte for power problems besetting the country.
But Petilla pointed out he has been on the job for only two years and had inherited the problems from his predecessors.
“In Mindanao, the brownouts happened in 2010. It takes four years to build a power plant,” Petilla said, meaning that something should have already been done in 2004 or 2006 to have avoided the Mindanao brownouts in 2010.
“It is now 2014. What I am saying, in energy, everything is long-term basis. The best way to deal with energy is to think long-term,” he added.
Petilla said that he was now focused on the energy situation of the country in the future or at least four or five years from now.
“Majority of my meetings (are for) 2018 or 2019 because if we want to resolve this, we should stop looking at petty things,” he said.
He said he could not apply what he termed “Band-Aid solutions” just to please some certain persons or sectors.
“If the pressure on the secretary is always on Band-Aid solutions and he focuses on Band-Aid solutions, nothing would happen. If you put on a Band-Aid solution, it falls apart after a year or two, then you will go back to square one,” Petilla said.
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