Rufino resigns from PLOPA for ‘health reasons’

Secretary Jose Rufino of the Presidential Liaison Office on Political Affairs (PLOPA) resigned yesterday after finding out that his office has practically been abolished by President Arroyo.

Rufino sent a text message to The STAR saying he has resigned from the Cabinet "due to health reasons."

The former PLOPA chief is afflicted with cirrhosis and has been undergoing treatment since last year.

"My office was not abolished. I asked the President (if I could) leave the Cabinet and be a director of a GOCC (government-owned and controlled corporation) instead," Rufino said.

This was a day after Mrs. Arroyo appointed Gabriel Claudio, of the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO), as her new presidential political adviser.

Claudio, it will be recalled, went on official leave of absence from his PLLO post during the May 10 presidential election campaign to work full-time as her campaign manager in the administration’s coalition ticket.

Claudio takes over the post as head of the newly organized Office of Political Affairs (OPA) which the President created under Executive Order 344, dated Aug. 9, which was first reported by The STAR.

EO 344 also created the Office of Political Coalition Affairs (OPCA) and the Office of Constituency Affairs (OCA), which will have their respective executive directors and were placed under "oversight" functions of the newly created OPA.

The President named last week Edgardo Pamintuan, her adviser for constituency affairs, to head OCA. But OPCA still has no designated head.

EO 344 was silent on what will happen to the existing Office of the Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs (OPAPA) and Rufino’s PLOPA.

The OPAPA was previously headed by Hernani Braganza who resigned last January to run for mayor of Lingayen.

Rufino was the last to know when his office was split into two and Braganza was transferred to PLOPA after the latter resigned as press secretary in June last year.

EO 344 provided though that the existing Political Affairs Office in the Office of the President "is hereby merged with the OPCA and shall be re-engineered" in accordance with the new organizational structure. It is not clear whether this body refers to the same OPAPA headed by Rufino.

Claudio for his part told The STAR that OPA effectively abolished both OPAPA and PLOPA.

He disclosed that the President has an important assignment to give to Rufino, national director of the administration Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats.

Rufino said he is just going back to the private sector "to rest" and relax now that he is no longer connected with the government, although he would remain active with Lakas.

"With the reorganization done by the President, I have to beg off because I’d rather be going to jobs that have less stress on me," Rufino said, adding that he was keeping an open mind on accepting a post in a GOCC.

Meanwhile, former environment secretary Elisea Gozun has begged off from being appointed to an agency attached to her old department.

The recently widowed Gozun said her two children asked her to return to the private sector.