Quezon City administrator is Noy's Little President

MANILA, Philippines - President-apparent Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III has chosen his long-time friend and counsel, Quezon City administrator Paquito “Jojo” Ochoa Jr., to be his executive secretary once he is formally proclaimed chief executive within the month.

Although Aquino had also considered Ochoa to be his justice secretary, he said the Quezon City official “has to be one or the other.”

He said Ochoa “will be anything and everything” and that “he will know everything and anything which he will be part of.”

“He’ll be the one to follow up with concerned agencies for the data I need. He will have to form the decisions that we’ll have to make,” Aquino told reporters shortly before the start of the Senate session yesterday.

Aquino said he would need Ochoa’s help especially in crafting laws on improving agricultural productivity. He said more than 100 million hectares of fertile lands have remained unproductive.

“You ask why hasn’t it been utilized all this time, how can we turn it around and use it for productive purposes? He will craft new laws if needed to address these concerns,” Aquino said.

“He will watch over the bureaucracy and go after the corrupt. Anything and everything I have to do, the ES will be part and parcel of,” Aquino added.

Anti-smuggling

But Aquino said he wasn’t yet ruling out the post of Justice secretary for Ochoa.

“We are having a little difficulty getting the people we want. We’re still vetting,” Aquino said.

He said his appointment of a credible and competent Justice secretary is key to judicial reforms and to his promised crusade against smuggling.

“If we run out of time and we haven’t picked a potential secretary of Justice, I might task him (Ochoa) for the DOJ,” he said in Filipino.

He said that although he already has a list of smugglers and that his administration is ready to make the “necessary arrests, charges, et cetera,” the campaign would fail if there is no “spearhead” at the DOJ.

He said he had offered the post to retired chief justice Reynato Puno and to constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas, but they both declined. Puno said he is willing to serve as consultant to Aquino on judicial matters.