GMA names new PEA chief, 2 directors

President Arroyo appointed three new officials to the graft-ridden Public Estates Authority, even as Malacañang warned dismissed PEA officials to immediately stop signing documents and leave their offices.

Teodorico Taguinod replaces PEA acting general manager Gen. Diomedio Villanueva (ret.). Tomas Alcantara and Datu Ibrahim Paglas III, meanwhile, were appointed PEA directors.

Villanueva, was acting PEA general manager prior to his new appointment as postmaster general, replacing Nicasio Rodriguez.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said Mrs. Arroyo hasn’t named a new PEA chairman.

Asked why the President made new appointments after she ordered PEA’s abolition, Bunye said, "this demobilization or deactivation will take place only upon the passage of a law which abolishes the agency. In the meantime... certain persons have to be in charge of the operation."

Taguinod is a retired executive and chairman of Engineering Equipment Inc. (EEI).

Paglas was once mayor of Datu Paglas town in Maguindanao and former president of the Paglas Group of Companies.

Alcantara is a former trade undersecretary and former director of the Board of Investments (BOI). He is also a regular member of the RP-Malaysia Business Council and once served as Manila Economic and Cultural Office head in Taipei, Taiwan and is president of Lima Land Inc.

PEA deputy general manager for finance legal and administration Theron Victor Lacson, deputy general manager Manuel Beriña, assistant deputy general manager Jaime Milan, deputy manager Bernardo Viray and senior corporate counsel Ernesto Enriquez are still holding office in PEA and signing papers despite the fact they have been fired by Malacañang, PEA employees told The STAR.

Bunye warned the sacked PEA officials who refuse to vacate their posts that more forcible measures will be used to remove them from PEA.

He added that any documents executed by and contracts entered into by the five would be illegal.

In his Dec. 16, 2002 letter to the chairman and members of the PEA board, Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo said the President approved the Nov. 28, 2002 recommendation of the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) dismissing the erring PEA officials and meting them the corresponding penalties.

PEA employees are confused as to whether or not the agency would be abolished. "It’s confusion on a grand scale among the employees, whether they are for the abolition or not," a PEA manager told The STAR.

The PEA Employees Union has asked for an immediate reorganization of the PEA at the soonest possible time.

PEA Employees Union president Adolfo Raceles said, "the reorganization would have to include everyone, including the five officials ordered dismissed by Malacañang."

He added that, with the agency’s dwindling funds, PEA employees are anxious to know if they will continue to receive their monthly salaries.