New PCGG commissioner named

Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) chairwoman Haydee Yorac’s chief of staff was appointed as the agency’s newest commissioner yesterday.

Lawyer Vyva Victoria Aguirre will replace PCGG Commissioner Ma. Gracia Pulido-Tan, who was named as finance undersecretary for revenue and operations.

The appointments of Aguirre and Tan were signed by President Arroyo and took effect yesterday.

Tan’s appointment as finance undersecretary came six months after she was appointed PCGG commissioner.

Aguirre, who had been acting director of the PCGG’s legal department aside from being Yorac’s chief of staff, will be taking over Tan’s functions, which include the handling of the finance department and being one of the commissioners in charge of the research department.

Aguirre earned her baccalaureate degree in foreign service in 1966, a master’s degree in library science in 1975, and her law degree in 1992, all from the University of the Philippines (UP).

After placing 13th in the 1993 Bar, she took up a postgraduate degree in European Community Law at the Leiden University in the Netherlands in 1997.

Aguirre was a college librarian at the UP College of Law from 1989 to 2001 and a senior lecturer at the same school from 1993 to 1999. She was a consultant in various projects associated with the study of the law.

Tan, on the other hand, is a lawyer and a certified public accountant. She was a former senior partner of the Tan and Venturanza Law Offices from 1988 to 2002, and a tax specialist at the KPMG Peat Marwick Main & Co. in New York in 1987. – Rainier Allan Ronda