MANILA, Philippines — (UPDATE – 1:58 p.m.) It took all of three minutes on Wednesday morning — what Senator Panfilo Lacson called “the shortest confirmation hearing of a Cabinet secretary” — for Alan Peter Cayetano to transform from lawmaker to Foreign Affairs secretary.
In contrast, the confirmation hearing of Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo was postponed by the Commission on Appointments.
Taguiwalo herself broke the news shortly after noon to supporters, mostly from activist groups, who had trooped to the Senate in Pasay City.
Thanking her supporters, who had braved the searing heat, Taguiwalo said: “Alam ko ang lubos ninyong suporta sa aking kompirmasyon pero hindi naman natuloy (I know your full support for my confirmation but it has been postponed again.”
She said the CA had informed her that they could not finish the confirmation hearing for Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial. No date has been set for Taguiwalo’s confirmation hearing.
WATCH TAGUIWALO ADDRESS HER SUPPORTERS IN THIS VIDEO FROM HER FACEBOOK PAGE:
“This is the third time we came here. The first time was postponed. Then we finally had a hearing last week. Today should have been our third. But as of 12 noon, we were informed of the cancellation,” Taguiwalo was quoted as saying by independent media outfit Kodao Productions.
Taguiwalo also said the long wait she is being made to suffer is a form of torture, Kodao reported.
“Pass or fail, I can deal with that. But I don’t think it is acceptable that the hearings keep getting postponed,” she said.
In Cayetano’s case, Lacson, who chairs the CA’s committee on foreign affairs, moved to recommend his confirmation to the plenary.
“Is there any objection? Hearing none, congratulations Secretary Cayetano,” Lacson said.
Neither was any question asked.
“Thank you for giving me the honor of breezing through the Commission on Appointments. I will do my best para ‘di po kayo mapahiya (not to put you to shame),” Cayetano said.
Cayetano said that he was welcome to suggestions and complaints, especially from overseas Filipino workers, and would soon be visiting passport processing areas to identify problems and how these can be corrected.
He also said he looks forward to meeting with the DFA top brass to get inputs and align the agency with President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to be “friends to all, enemies to none.”
Cayetano’s confirmation came just over a year since he lost the vice presidential race as President Rodrigo Duterte’s running mate.
Recently, he represented the Philippines at the Universal Periodic Review before the United National Human Rights Council where he defended the Duterte government’s war on drugs, denying state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings and describing reports of the thousands of deaths since last year as “alternative facts.”
