DA team 90 percent complete, says Tiu Laurel

MANILA, Philippines — Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said his leadership team is now 90 percent complete, noting that he is just awaiting the appointment of his last undersecretary.

“Only one undersecretary is missing but basically the team is 90 percent complete,” Tiu Laurel told reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration of PMFTC Inc.’s P8.8 billion factory expansion in Tanauan City, Batangas.

Tiu Laurel said the forthcoming undersecretary is already in the DA “working” and just awaiting appointment papers.

The last remaining undersecretary would be the 14th under the leadership of Tiu Laurel, who is nearing his sixth month in office.

“We already 100 percent working,” he said.

According to Tiu Laurel, he has a lot of undersecretaries so that there would be a key official or focal person for every area that the department covers.

“The DA covers from vegetables to fish and meat, even irrigation, it is a lot. We have I think 29 bureaus and GOCCs (government-owned and controlled corporations). DA is one of the most complicated departments in the country,” he said.

Tiu Laurel said an overlapping in the duties of the undersecretaries could not be avoided initially but pointed out that they would be able to properly adjust and focus on their respective areas “as they go along.”

“We have laid out everything already, there is a direction already. We are meeting weekly compared to previous wherein the meetings at the DA are once every quarter,” he said.

“We’re tackling everything on a weekly basis,” he added.

Tiu Laurel described his team at the DA as a mix of “organic” agriculture officials who rose from the ranks, industry players and retired technical people who are all capable of creating a “whole of nation” approach in addressing the problems of the agriculture sector.

He said he is also still relying on the Private Sector Advisory Council Agriculture Sector to “countercheck” the direction of the DA so that the government would be a “solid” coordination and “everyone is in unison.”

The latest to join Tiu Laurel at the DA are Nora Oliveros as undersecretary for finance and Allan Umali as undersecretary for administration.