GMA names De Villa, Lina to new Cabinet

President Arroyo is expected to appoint today former Defense Secretary Renato de Villa as executive secretary and Laguna Gov. Jose Lina as secretary of the interior and local government.

"They are the choice for the posts," a source privy to findings of a Cabinet search committee told The STAR yesterday.

The source said Mrs. Arroyo is also expected to name former Social Security System chairman Renato Valencia as president of the state-run gaming firm Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).

Budget Undersecretary Emilia Boncodin is also being eyed to head the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the source added.

Earlier, Mrs. Arroyo said in a televised interview that she was "considering" activist Dinky Soliman as secretary of social welfare and development.

Soliman is a convenor of the Kongreso ng Mamamayang Pilipino II (Kompil II) which actively campaigned for the ouster of disgraced former President Joseph Estrada.

She also said she was "considering" Quezon City Rep. Michael Defensor to take charge of the government’s housing program, a Cabinet-level portfolio.

Aside from Cabinet appointments, the President has issued her first administrative order which directs all government agencies against dealing with any of her relatives up to the fourth degree of consanguinity or affinity.

Mrs. Arroyo made two public appearances yesterday, both religious ceremonies.

A Catholic, she first heard Mass celebrated by Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin at the EDSA Shrine together with former President Corazon Aquino and Finance Secretary-designate Alberto Romulo.

Early in the evening, she also attended worship services of the large Protestant sect Jesus is Lord Movement.

But most of her time was taken up with meetings with her emerging Cabinet where it was reaffirmed that the Arroyo administration would pursue charges of plunder against Estrada.

"We don’t intend to strike any deal with Mr. Estrada and his cohorts. Let the ax fall where it may. If they have something to answer for, let them answer for it," said top Arroyo aide Renato Corona, head of the President’s transition team.

Corona also said the Chief Executive is set to reorganize the government’s legal team, including the Presidential Commission on Good Government.

"The reorganization includes putting people who are really interested and really committed to the recovery of the Marcos wealth," Corona said.

Meanwhile, Corona, who inspected the Palace after the Estradas left on Saturday, said some art works in a Malacañang collection were reported missing during an inspection yesterday.

"I’m not referring to just paintings but marble carvings, really beautiful pieces left in the Palace since 1986," Corona said.

"I’m not saying they stole them," Corona said, referring to the Estradas. "Perhaps, people packing their things could have mistaken those pieces as belonging to them," he added.

First working day as President

"We are hitting the ground running," Corona said, echoing the line Mrs. Arroyo repeatedly said in various fora over the weekend.

The President is expected to begin her first working day with flag-raising ceremonies at the Malacañang Palace grounds after which she would meet with officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

She is also set to meet the leaders of the various groups that helped organize the popular uprising at the EDSA Shrine which caused the AFP and key Cabinet members to withdraw support for Mr. Estrada on Friday.

But Mrs. Arroyo has repeatedly said over the weekend that economic recovery shall be the immediate priority of her administration.

Already the business sector is looking forward to the end of a protracted political crisis following the inauguration of a new president with strong economic credentials

Mrs. Arroyo, inaugurated Saturday after the four-day EDSA uprising, was a dean’s list economics student at Georgetown University in Washington D, where she was a classmate of former US President Bill Clinton.

She was named to the trade agency Garments and Textiles Export Board by President Aquino before she won a seat in the Senate under the Lakas-NUCD party of former President Fidel Ramos.

Immediately after her inauguration, she named experienced financier and former senator Alberto Romulo as her finance secretary to help contain a ballooning budget deficit.

The budget deficit deteriorated to P136.1 billion, or more than double the target, during the Estrada regime because of weak tax collections and privatization revenues.

Romulo will have to meet with investment bankers and multilateral creditors who have been disillusioned by the blatant cronyism that dragged down confidence in the economy.

Both the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have refused to release loans to the Philippines because of Manila’s failure to meet some of its economic targets.

However, Romulo echoed Mrs. Arroyo’s call for leadership by example and vowed governance supportive of a "level playing field."

"The first thing we will do is provide leadership by example. We will show through governance that there is a level playing field and a rule of law," Romulo said in a radio interview yesterday.

In her first policy pronouncements, Mrs. Arroyo herself acknowledged that perceptions of a level playing field is vital in attracting foreign investments into the economy after hitting record lows during the Estrada regime.

"What the business community needs is transparency and a level playing field," Mrs. Arroyo earlier said in a televised interview over the weekend.

But the emerging Arroyo economic team conceded that the country’s economic problems will take some time to resolve.

"It will take at least two years to recover lost ground. Some are even more unkind, they say it will take five years or even more," Romulo said in a radio interview.

Despite the wariness, however, business leaders are already expressing exuberance at the economic outlook and are predicting a swift recovery at least for the battered peso and the stock exchange.

"We are back in business," said elated industrialist Raul Concepcion, president of the Federation of Philippine Industries.

"When the peso was down to 55 (to the dollar), many of the businesses were beginning to close shop and even before that some were even laying off people and implementing a four-day week," Concepcion said.

He said economic recovery with the strengthening of the peso would help stop the bleeding among businesses clobbered by steep interest rates.

But Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Rafael Buenaventura has so far made no indication that interest rates would be adjusted when the BSP’s policy-making monetary board meets this Friday.