COA, Comelec, CSC, DOH, PNP still headless; Aquino in no hurry to fill jobs

President Benigno Aquino III AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–Three constitutional bodies have no chairs just yet, the Department of Health (DOH) has an acting secretary, and even the Philippine National Police appears confused, having a suspended chief reportedly still calling the shots although there is an officer in charge.

Amid all this, Malacañang has kept mum on when President Aquino will name the replacements for Chair Grace Pulido-Tan of the Commission on Audit (COA), Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Chair Francisco Duque III of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), who retired on Feb 1.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda told the Inquirer he still had to check if there were already shortlists of names to replace the three chairpersons.

Being constitutional bodies, the COA, Comelec and CSC could still function even without appointed chairpersons yet. Tan and Brillantes have also retired.

Last month, President Aquino said he would appoint acting Health Secretary Janette Garin to a permanent capacity, replacing resigned Secretary Enrique Ona.

Aquino said the ministerial aspect of Garin’s appointment would be done after the visit of Pope Francis. A week after the Pope left Manila last month, however, the bloody Mamasapano debacle happened and had the President on a defensive mode since.

The incident also highlighted another important decision the President appeared to have made: to keep his beleaguered friend, Director General Alan Purisima, as PNP chief, even as he had been suspended on graft charges. Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina is PNP officer in charge in the meantime.

Director Getulio Napenas, who has been relieved as chief of the Special Action Force following the Mamasapano fiasco, has revealed that Purisima was the overall commander of the botched Jan. 25 operation in Maguindanao province to get international terrorist Zulfikli bin Hir, alias “Marwan,” and his Filipino deputy.

The President himself admitted that he consulted with Purisima, even when Purisima was serving his suspension.

Through all this, Espina was kept in the dark on the SAF mission.

Asked if the gray area between Purisima and Espina caused confusion among their people on the ground, and had bloody results as the Mamasapano incident showed, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said the board of inquiry would cover the “audit” of the SAF operation.

Confused chain of command

“This is the operational audit, according to Espina. It will determine what happened and if there was a supposed lack of clarity (on the PNP leadership) according to some observers. Let us just wait for the operational audit to determine this,” Coloma said.

Alumni of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) on Tuesday urged the President to appoint a full-time PNP chief.

“This is the only way to fix the confused chain of command in the PNP and avoid a repeat of the Mamasapano massacre,” said PNPA Alumni Association chair, Tomas Rentoy III.

“This is the only way to march off the police rank and file from the inertia that has stymied them since the designation of OICs, or outside the inner circle, to senior positions,” Rentoy said.–With a report from Julie M. Aurelio

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