President Rodrigo Duterte and Peter Tiu Laviña. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
President Duterte’s campaign spokesperson Peter Laviña is the new chief of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the latest in the fixtures of the Chief Executive’s electoral campaign to head a government agency.
Laviña’s designation was announced by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, who hailed the appointment as a “welcome relief” for his department as it was one of the most important agencies supporting agriculture.
Laviña’s wife Evelyn happens to be an agriculture undersecretary.
“Laviña … brings with him a public service record untainted by corruption,” Piñol said in a Facebook post.
“With Laviña at the helm of NIA, I expect a smoother coordination between the [Department of Agriculture] and the water agency of the government, especially in the area of the scheduling of the release of irrigation water for the rice farms which had been a problematic issue for so long,” he added.
Fulfilling campaign promise
Laviña, for his part, said on his Facebook page that he would take the lead in fulfilling Mr. Duterte’s campaign promise to provide free irrigation to farmers.
He also said he would back Piñol’s bid for rice self-sufficiency, and use irrigation water to provide power to light up homes in the provinces.
Piñol also said the President appointed Maguindanao engineer Czar Sulaik as deputy administrator for operations of the NIA. Piñol earlier recommended Sulaik for the post of NIA chief.
He said Sulaik had been reluctant about heading the NIA, and agreed to take on the position of deputy administrator after learning of the President’s decision to name Laviña as irrigation administrator.
New appointments
The agriculture secretary also said he learned of the President’s new appointments from Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go.
Other key players in Mr. Duterte’s campaign for the presidency have also gotten government positions.
They include Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, who headed his campaign’s finance team, and Leoncio Evasco, his national campaign manager who is now Secretary to the Cabinet.