Attorney Salvador Panelo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
They are not quite midnight appointees, as the Cabinet meeting ended before Cinderella hour, but lawyer Salvador Panelo and former pastor Ernesto Abella emerged from the meeting as the newest officials in what promises to be the nocturnal administration of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte.
Panelo is not so new, as he was Duterte’s presidential spokesperson-designate until the longtime Davao City mayor, who is most active at night, announced at the Cabinet meeting that he had given him a new hat.
“I have just been named chief presidential legal counsel. Actually that has been my position all along and my being presidential spokesperson was temporary, as he announced and explained to the Cabinet tonight,” Panelo told reporters.
Abella, a former pastor who was kidnapped by bandits in Davao City in 1996 but was rescued by Duterte with the help of the Moro National Liberation Front, is taking the place of Panelo as presidential spokesperson.
He debuted earlier this week to announce fresh appointments to the Duterte Cabinet, but made his first official appearance as presidential spokesperson after Wednesday night’s meeting at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).
Closed to the press
The meeting was closed to the press, which Duterte, already playing the role of Punisher in Chief, banned from his events after being scoriated by the international media in late May for saying that corrupt journalists were legitimate targets of assassination.
It was the first time that Duterte set foot in Manila since his election on May 9, and the Cabinet meeting, according to Abella, was held in the capital for practical reasons.
“A number of people were already here anyway,” he said.
“[T]he whole meeting basically is just about hearing from the various sectors so that the incoming administration will be able to be more systematic and more coordinated, and that the departments will not act as silos,” Abella told reporters after the meeting ended at 11 p.m.
Getting to know you
Martin Andanar, incoming chief of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, said all of Duterte’s appointees were present at the meeting, which was the first outside Davao City for the incoming administration.
As it was simply a “getting to know you” meeting, Abella said no policies were laid down or official statements made during the gathering.
Abella said another Cabinet meeting might be held next week, before Duterte’s inauguration, but it was still unclear whether it would be held in Manila or in Davao City. With a report from Yuji Vincent Gonzales, INQUIRER.net