Wendel Avisado resigns as budget chief due to 'medical reasons'

MANILA, Philippines – Wendel Avisado has resigned from his post as budget secretary due to "medical reasons".

"PRRD has accepted Sec. Wendel Avisado’s resignation due to medical reasons," Malacañang spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement sent to reporters on Friday, referring to President Rodrigo Duterte by his presidential initials.

Budget Undersecretary Tina Marie Canda will act as officer-in-charge at the Department of Budget and Management.

Prior to his resignation, the DBM said Avisado, 68, took a medical leave from August 2 to 13 "following his recent bout with COVID-19 where he was hospitalized for 8 days and quarantined for over a month".

The DBM said Avisado's doctor advised him to "undertake a series of examination as it has been 14 years since undergoing a quadruple open heart bypass". It was not clear how the heart surgery 14 years ago affected Avisado's health when he got infected by coronavirus.

Avisado’s departure from DBM came as the agency prepares the proposed P5.024 trillion budget for 2022, which is targeted to be submitted to Congress on August 23.  The proposed outlay for next year is equivalent to 22.8% of gross domestic product and is higher by 11.5% than this year’s budget.

The target date of submission still complies with the Constitution’s mandate requiring the DBM to send the budget proposal to Congress 30 days after the president’s State of the Nation Address. President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his final SONA on July 26.

But the timeline is already a departure from the DBM’s past practice of submitting the proposed outlay on the day of the SONA or a few days after that to give lawmakers more time to deliberate on the budget bill. When hard lockdowns were imposed last year, the DBM said it had a hard time collecting budget proposals from agencies due to limited manpower. Forecasting how much the government needs for next year has also become more difficult with the end to the pandemic still far from sight.

Avisado took his oath of office on Aug. 5, 2019, months after then-budget chief Benjamin Diokno was appointed as central bank governor. In the midst of transition, Janet Abuel sat at the top of DBM as acting secretary.

Before Avisado's stint at the DBM, Duterte appointed him as Presidential Assistant for Special Concerns, which tasked him to watch over the rehabilitation of areas ravaged by super-typhoon Yolanda. Previously, he was Davao City administrator from 2004 to 2010. He was elected twice as a city councilor of Davao City's first district.