President Rodrigo Duterte named Janet Abuel as acting secretary of the Department of Budget and Management.
“‹“Yesterday night’s Cabinet meeting began with the President’s announcement of the appointment of the DBM Officer-in-Charge/Undersecretary Janet Abuel as acting secretary,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement Tuesday.
Abuel was previously named DBM officer-in-charge, replacing Benjamin Diokno who was appointed as governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Abuel, a certified public accountant, finished law at the University of the Cordilleras and topped the bar in 1998.
She also holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, and a Master of Laws degree from the University of Sydney in Australia.
Abuel is a career official at the DBM, starting as a budget and management analyst in 1996 and rising from the ranks to become undersecretary.
Prior to her appointment as the acting DBM chief, she headed the local government and regional operations group, overseeing policy formulation and concerns of local governments, as well as supervising regional offices as an undersecretary.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agrarian Reform on Tuesday warned “substandard” contractors of foreign-assisted infrastructure projects.
Undersecretary for Foreign-Assisted and Special Projects Office Bernie Cruz said the agency could recommend to blacklist or suspend contractors with defective projects so that they could not be allowed to participate in future bidding of projects with the Department of Public Works of Highways.
“We [DAR] as the property owner will always continue to monitor and evaluate such projects,” he told the Manila Standard.
“The beauty in the implementation of the foreign-assisted projects is that we have the responsibility to report their progress to the National Economic Development Authority,” he said.
According to Cruz, Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones has instructed all DAR officials to end corruption within the agency.
“The fight against corruption is relentless under the Duterte administration,” he said.
“The monitoring of the implementation of foreign-assisted infrastructure projects is stricter than locally funded projects since their allocations come from foreign loans,” he cited.
“NEDA-Investment Coordination [-Cabinet Committee] conducts regular coordination meeting, wherein we submit our quarterly reports,” he said.
He gave the farmers as well as the public that “corruption is very remote remote” to happen in the implementation of foreign-assisted projects.
Earlier, Cruz blocked the turnover of two “substandard” farm-to-market roads in Sultan Kudarat, Mindanao.
He also ordered the deferment of the transfer of management and maintenance of a P34.55-million farm-to-market road to officials and residents of Barangay Masiag, Bagumbayan municipality and a P7.36-million farm-to-market road in Isulan town due to some cracks. With PNA