GMA names Noli adviser for OFWs

President Arroyo named Vice President Noli de Castro yesterday as presidential adviser on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to complement his earlier assignment as her "alternate" chairman at the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC).

Mrs. Arroyo announced the appointment during a two-hour pulong bayan (town hall meeting) at the Ford Group Philippines plant in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

"I am appointing (De Castro) as presidential adviser for OFWs, and included in his job is how to take care of their families here," she said.

In designating him adviser for OFWs, Mrs. Arroyo gave De Castro supervision over the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA).

The new position reduces the portfolio of Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas, who, along with OWWA Administrator Virgilio Angelo, was present at yesterday’s pulong bayan.

The President said De Castro will be responsible for "taking care of the OFWs" while Sto. Tomas will "concentrate on domestic labor."

De Castro’s job will also entail attending to the needs of overseas workers’ families, who will be given access to "microfinancing" to help them start or expand their businesses.

"With the help of microfinance institutions, the families here of our workers abroad shall be taken care of by the POEA and the OWWA," Mrs. Arroyo said.

When he was still a senator, De Castro was the author and principal sponsor of the 2002 Balikbayan Law. The law provides for, among other things, a kabuhayan (livelihood) program for OFWs to make them economically self-reliant upon their return to the country.

A former broadcast journalist, De Castro welcomed his new assignment as another challenge in his career as a public servant.

In announcing her latest reorganization move, Mrs. Arroyo insisted she had "broad powers to reorganize" the executive department.

Last July 15, she announced De Castro’s appointment as co-chairman of the NAPC during the commission’s 14th en banc meeting at Malacañang.

De Castro’s appointment to the NAPC, which oversees the government’s pro-poor programs and projects, predated his announcement on July 24 that he had decided to give up his original desire to head the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in favor of incumbent Secretary Corazon Soliman.

In other Palace news, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye announced the appointment of Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) chairman Dario Rama as the new Postmaster-General of the Philippine Postal Corp., an agency attached to the Department of Transportation and Communications.

Rama, whose appointment was signed by Mrs. Arroyo on July 30, took his oath at the office of Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo last Tuesday.

Rama takes over from retired Gen. Diomedio Villanueva. Bunye could not say if Villanueva was being given a new assignment.

Palace sources also told The STAR yesterday that former Ayala Group executive Francis Licuanan had accepted an offer from Mrs. Arroyo for him to serve in the government.

Licuanan, who recently retired from the Ayala Group of Companies, is among those mentioned as possible replacement for outgoing Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) administrator Felicito Payumo, whose six-year term ends on Sept. 1.

The President earlier split the office of the SBMA administrator into two. In addition to the administrator, who will continue to run the day-to-day affairs of the Subic Freeport, a largely figurehead chair will head the SBMA board of directors. — With Pia Lee-Brago