Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin (PNA file photo by Avito Dalan)
MANILA – Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, during his appointment deliberation on Wednesday, told the Commission on Appointments (CA) that the Marcos administration is "careful" in appointing government officials to fill up the vacancies especially in key positions.
Bersamin was answering the query of CA member Senator Imee Marcos who was asking to speed up the rollout of the appointments to key government agencies like the Department of Health.
He said the Office of the Executive Secretary has imposed on the applicants the requirement to submit clearances from the National Bureau of Investigation.
Bersamin said applicants, who were former government employees, have to submit Civil Service and Ombudsman clearances, which he said, prolongs the processing.
"Because we have had these unfortunate experiences, very few, where the appointees were unworthy or turned out to have been charged in so many cases in the courts or administratively. That's what we avoid because that embarasses the President and the administration. The length of time that is added to this may not be much but the volume of the applicants simply must be so attended to," he said.
As for the co-terminus positions, Bersamin said his office has a self-imposed deadline to fill up all the positions before the year ends and vowed to also consider retaining employees.
"The President has a good heart and he has instructed us to be as kind and as generous to those who may be affected. We share the same compassion and we are actually devising a way of absorbing as many as we can," he said.
Bersamin also noted when he assumed office, he did not have the benefit of a transition or turnover of papers that were already submitted to the office.
"We did a lot of digging into these documents until we found them because we were always readily blamed by the respective cabinet secretaries about this slow pace of appointments. But that was not intentional. We are correcting this issue now," he told Senator Marcos.
Endorsing Bersamin's CA confirmation, the solon said she is certain that the executive secretary can get a handle of the situation. (PNA)
