‘I thought the President was just joking me’

Newly-appointed Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat with President Rodrigo Duterte
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/JOAN BONDOC

Newly appointed Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said on Wednesday that President Rodrigo Duterte had “casually” asked her to be the head of the Department of Tourism (DOT) in a meeting in Malacañang.

It was so casual that Puyat said she did not think the President was serious about it.

In a phone interview, Puyat said she met with the President to update him on agricultural issues at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, a day after then Tourism Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo had turned in her resignation.

She said it was the President who mentioned to her Teo’s resignation and proceeded to offer her the top DOT post.

“It suits you. Your credentials speak for itself. Do you want it?” Puyat quoted the President as telling her.

“I thought he was joking,” she said. Puyat said she told the President “OK”  but added that “you are joking me.”

But then the President told her to join him in the other room where he just had a meeting with former Sen. Serge Osmeña III. In the room was Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go.

Puyat recalled the President telling Osmeña that the former senator would be the first to know the good news. The President then announced that she was the new tourism secretary.

‘Espasol’ post

Even as she left the Palace that day, she still couldn’t believe that she got the top DOT post until Go himself congratulated her in a Facebook post she made earlier about a picture she took of “espasol,” a rice cake.

“Congrats, Ma’am,” Go commented on her espasol post.

“Is it true? I still can’t believe!!! I just came from the house of Bettina Osmeña,” she replied to Go’s comment, referring to the wife of the former senator.

Puyat said that for now she had in mind promoting farm tourism as espoused in a law created by Sen. Cynthia Villar. The law  encourages tapping farms for tourism.

Puyat said she also planned to promote Philippine culinary tourism to encourage more foreigners to visit the country.

“I think it’s a very good choice,” Carmelo Bautista, president of GT Capital Holdings, said, referring to Puyat’s appointment.

Federal Land has interests in tourism-oriented property.

Edgar Sia II, cochair of DoubleDragon Properties Corp., said that given Puyat’s “long years in public service, plus her outstanding credentials, she was highly capable to head the Department of Tourism.”

 MA in economics

Puyat is an economist who taught at the University of the Philippines.

She obtained her master of arts in economics degree from the premier state university, and was invited to the Ph.D. program, which is open only to those who graduated with high grades.

Her father is former Sen. Alberto Romulo, who, under the Arroyo administration served as finance secretary, executive secretary and later foreign secretary, a position he held until the first year of the Aquino administration. The elder Romulo now chairs Development Bank of the Philippines.

A mother of two, the economist was married to lawyer David Puyat, who died in 2010.

She ran for the congressional seat of the first district of Quezon City. She lost to Vincent Crisologo.

During the Arroyo administration, Puyat served as deputy Cabinet secretary under the Office of the President before she was appointed undersecretary for special concerns at the Department of Agriculture in 2007.

Under the Aquino administration, she was  appointed anew as agriculture undersecretary.

She was retained as agriculture undersecretary, this time for administration, agribusiness and marketing, and regional engagement by the Duterte administration. —WITH INQUIRER RESEARCH