3 DOTC execs quit; Batuhan stays

Three top officials recruited by Secretary Jose de Jesus to help implement reforms at the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) announced their resignations yesterday.

Undersecretaries Glicerio Sicat, Ruben Reinoso and Dante Velasco said they would leave the DOTC on June 30, the same day De Jesus’ resignation takes effect.

Another undersecretary, Cebuano Aristotle Batuhan, said he would remain at his post until asked to leave by President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
Sicat, who heads the department’s aviation group, said he would return to the private sector.

Reinoso, head of the DOTC’s planning and project development sector, will return to his old post as an assistant director general at the National Economic Development Authority.

Velasco said he would focus on his post as undersecretary at the Office of the President working under Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa.
He has held this post concurrently with his job at DOTC for the past two months, he said.

All three were recruited by De Jesus and assumed their DOTC posts last July.

“It’s very important to give the next secretary a free hand to create his own team,” Sicat said in yesterday’s press conference.

De Jesus tendered his resignation earlier this week without announcing a reason other than to say he would rejoin the private sector.

His resignation takes effect at the end of the month, exactly a year after took the job.

Batuhan, the DOTC’s undersecretary for legal affairs, said he didn’t know the three officials would announce their resignations in a press conference.

“I will only resign if and when a new secretary is appointed and if and when the new secretary desires to bring in new people,” Batuhan said in a radio interview.

For now, he said it is premature to leave/ Batuhan said his commitment is to the entire DOTC and to the President.

Some senators saw the resignations as a sign of “demoralization”’ and “crisis” in the department. But others simply saw an “act of decency.”

The undersecretaries’ decision to quit the department was a “big blow”’ to the Aquino administration, Sen. Joker Arroyo said.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the flurry of resignations “may be a crisis of sorts that must be addressed carefully.”

But senators Gregorio Honasan II, Francis Pangilinan and Franklin Drilon said the resignations would give the new DOTC secretary the chance to pick his own team. Inquirer with Correspondent Jhunnex Napallacan