GMA formally takes over DFA, names 2 officials to new posts

President Arroyo formally assumed her unprecedented concurrent post as acting secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) after Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr.’s resignation became effective yesterday.

However, she sidestepped the issue on whether to offer the post to opposition Sen. Blas Ople.

Mrs. Arroyo began her new job by announcing the appointment of two officials to new posts.

Former ambassador to Australia Delia Albert was named undersecretary for international cooperation in lieu of Sixto Roxas.

She also appointed her presidential adviser on foreign relations, Cecille Rebong, as her concurrent chief of protocol at Malacañang and also her official coordinator at the DFA.

Albert took over the post which was vacated by Roxas, who submitted his courtesy resignation because he was co-terminus with Guingona.

She also appointed Ambassador to Japan Domingo Siazon as her envoy to the upcoming ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Asean Regional Forum in Brunei.

DFA sources said Siazon was named because Mrs. Arroyo will not be able to attend the two conferences and because of Siazon’s experience as foreign affairs secretary during the Ramos and Estrada administrations.

Ignacio Bunye, who also began his first day as press secretary, told reporters that Mrs. Arroyo met with DFA officials at the presidential palace and told them to prepare for her trips to four European countries.

She also ordered them to prepare for a visit later this month by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who will embark on a seven-nation Asian swing.

In the meeting, Mrs. Arroyo spelled out her foreign policy priorities, one of which was ensuring the welfare of five million Filipinos working overseas and their families here.

She ordered the department to be "more service-oriented" to this sector, possibly by establishing a 24-hour, toll-free line where Filipinos can inquire about their relatives during disasters and emergencies overseas.

She also discussed her government’s policies with regard to Asean, the World Trade Organization and the forthcoming Asia-Europe meeting and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

"The President challenged the department to come up with initiatives that would strengthen Asean," which includes the Philippines as well as Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, an official statement said.

Bunye said Mrs. Arroyo also formed a management committee which she would meet on a regular basis during her temporary stint as foreign affairs secretary.

Mrs. Arroyo did not say how long she will hold the post, Bunye said. "Everything really depends on how soon the [Malacañang] Search Committee finalizes its recommendations on the replacement of the Vice President at the DFA," he said.

Guingona quit over "honest differences of opinion" with Mrs. Arroyo over the scope of US troop involvement in the Philippines’ war against local terrorism.

A staunch nationalist, Guingona had said deployment of foreign troops on local soil went against the Constitution. Although he remains as Vice President, his departure from the DFA is widely seen as easing the way for the approval of future joint US-Philippine exercises, analysts have said.

Joint counter-terrorism exercises between US and Philippine troops are scheduled to end this month.

Since February, US special forces have been training Philippine troops on the southern island of Basilan how to better fight the Abu Sayyaf, which had been linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network of fugitive Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden.

Last year, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mrs. Arroyo threw her support to the US-led global war against terrorism.

Asked in a radio interview if she had offered the foreign affairs portfolio to Ople, Mrs. Arroyo said, "Wala pa (Not yet)."

She did confirm that the Malacañang Search Committee has a short-list of nominees who will be screened by the panel, which will then submit its recommendation. She did not elaborate.

"I have no deadline for them. They have not submitted anything to me," Mrs. Arroyo said.

Presidential senior consultant on poverty alleviation and good governance Vicky Garchitorena, who heads the committee, said the other day that the list had five or six names. She refused to identify them.

Neither did Mrs. Arroyo comment in the radio interview about Ople’s revelation that she first sounded him out about the post as early as December during a dinner at the presidential palace.

An Ople appointment, however, did not sit well with a group of Arroyo political allies, the Kongreso ng Mamamayang Pilipino (Kompil) who registered anew their objection in a meeting with the President yesterday at Malacañang.

Kompil leaders opposed Ople’s possible appointment because they did not want politicians allied with Joseph Estrada, Mrs. Arroyo’s predecessor, back in the government.

In that meeting, Mrs. Arroyo impressed on Kompil leaders that there was no firm commitment between her and Ople on his possible appointment.

Kompil leaders were reportedly exhorted by Mrs. Arroyo to look at the issue "on a larger perspective than the DFA."

The DFA offer has been seen as an attempt by Malacañang to wrest back control of the Senate from pro-Estrada opposition senators, who staged a mini coup in the chamber early last month.

Administration senators refused to recognize the reorganization, which was also frowned upon by the public, saying it was illegal.

Mrs. Arroyo had a falling out with another ally group, the Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA), after it learned about a supposed Malacañang plan to recruit Estrada supporters into the government, which Mrs. Arroyo denied.

COPA and Kompil were among Mrs. Arroyo’s allies in a military-backed civilian uprising that ousted Estrada in January 2001.

Now on trial for illegally amassing millions, Estrada was toppled after an estranged drinking buddy, former Ilocos Sur governor Luis Singson, accused him in late 2000 of receiving bribes from illegal gambling rackets and pocketing state funds. — With reports from AFP, Mayen Jaymalin