Presidential appointees are not covered by a Civil Service Commission order prohibiting government officials having dual citizenship from being appointed into government positions.
This was the clarification made by Joyce Reano, Nayong Pilipino Foundation spokesperson, after the qualifications of NPF chairman, Patricia Ocampo, a holder of both a Philippine passport and a US passport, were questioned by some quarters believing she violated the CSC order.
Reano said Ocampo and the other members of the board of trustees are presidential appointees who do not need CSC approval in their appointments to their respective posts. It is only the President, who appointed them, that can remove them from office.
Reano added that presidential appointees like Ocampo “all serve at the pleasure of the President.”
Lino Santos
The prohibition is contained in CSC Memorandum Circular No. 23 wherein it is required that “a person with dual citizenship shall not be appointed in the government unless he/she renounces his/her foreign citizenship pursuant to Republic Act No. 9225.”
The order was issued to clarify the provisions of Republic Act No. 9225 on its applicability to both elective and appointive government officials.
However, the term “appointive officials” does not cover those appointed by the President “by name,” as clearly, the CSC does not have jurisdiction over qualifications of directors and appointees of government-owned and -controlled corporations, Reano said.
Reano said this was further clarified by CSC Assistant Commissioner Ariel G. Ronquillo, an expert in public service law, who said that “appointees named by the President are not covered by the CSC order.”
Ronquillo said: “Regarding the jurisdiction of the CSC, it’s in the law also that only non-presidential appointees are under us. So [it’s] only the appointments of these people which the CSC can invalidate or disapprove.”
At the same time, Reano said the board of trustees did not violate a travel prohibition on government officials when they traveled to Korea in September last year.
Reano said that no public funds were expended in that trip to Korea.
She said since the underlying rationale on imposing travel restrictions on public officials is to prevent the wasteful and improvident disbursement of public funds, when no public funds are involved, the subject travel could not be covered by the travel restriction, which suspended all foreign travels of government officials unless they secure a clearance from the Office of the President.
But more importantly, Reano said, the travel restriction, contained in Administrative Order No. 103-2004 was repealed by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte in Administrative Order No. 6 on September 19, 2017.
In the AO issued by President Duterte, he ordered the Department of Budget and Management to issue the necessary guidelines on the travel restrictions within thirty (30) days. It was only on January 3, 2018, that Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea issued a Memorandum specifying the guidelines for government travels.
The NPF party left for Korea on September 29, 2017 (a full two weeks after AO 104-2004 was repealed). Thus, there was no travel restriction at the time the Trustees went to Jeju Island and no guidelines yet on the said travel restrictions were issued by the DBM or by the Office of the Executive Secretary, Reano said.
In both cases, there were no violations that they were committed by either the NPF chair or the board trustees, Reano added.