PASG chief gets additional post

MANILA, Philippines - President Arroyo has appointed Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) chief Antonio Villar as concurrent chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) to replace Vicente Sotto III who has resigned to pursue his bid to return to the Senate next year.

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde also announced the appointment of Environment Undersecretary Eleazar Quinto as acting environment secretary to succeed Lito Atienza, who has resigned to pursue his bid to recapture the mayoralty post of Manila.

Remonde made the announcement after emerging from a Cabinet meeting at the Mansion House in Baguio City and a day after Villar disclosed that some officials close to the President were conniving to derail his agency’s efforts to curb smuggling in the country.

Remonde said Villar’s appointment takes effect on Jan 1.

Villar earlier said a 20-day temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by a Manila court was hampering the operations of PASG.

The court issued the TRO upon the petition of an accused big-time jewelry smuggler, Alpha Kwok, who questioned Mrs. Arroyo’s issuance of Executive Order 624 creating the PASG.

Kwok was linked to the smuggling of P500-million worth of diamonds and other jewelry items seized by PASG operatives last August in her condominium in Pasig City.

“Imagine, we made the arrest, presented the evidence to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for the biggest diamond smuggling bust in Asia, yet the Department of Justice is not yet acting on it,” he said.

He said officials close to the President want to undermine the PASG’s operations and that an influential person allegedly intervened to have the courts issue a TRO.

“In due time, I will expose them, maybe before the elections. People around her are the ones conniving,” he said.

Sotto, meanwhile, welcomed Villar’s appointment as DDB chair.

“He can count on me for any advice or any questions that he might have regarding the processes within the DDB and the PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency,” Sotto told The STAR when informed of Villar’s appointment.

Sotto said he personally knows Villar as an old friend and a schoolmate at the Colegio San Juan de Letran.

“He knows he can count on me and I can count on him. He’s very flexible and resilient. I hope he can work closely and harmoniously with PDEA,” he said.

PDEA director general Dionisio Santiago was out of the country.

Quinto, on the other hand, was political consultant to Atienza during the latter’s nine-year stint as mayor of Manila.

Quinto had also served as consultant to the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Resettlement; head executive assistant to then-senator Teofisto Guingona, and was also his special assistant when the former senator was chairman of the Commission on Audit.

He was chief of staff of former senator Nikki Coseteng until his appointment to the DENR as undersecretary in August 2007.

During his college days at the Ateneo de Manila University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies degree, Quinto was said to have co-founded with Guingona the Sandata ng Bayan Laban sa Kahirapan. – With Michael Punongbayan and Katherine Adraneda