FINANCE SECRETARY JUANITA AMATONG QUITS
MANILA, January 22, 2005 (STAR) By Des Ferriols - Finance Secretary Juanita Amatong announced yesterday her resignation from the Cabinet, ushering the revamp in the top levels of the Arroyo administration after two successive credit downgrades for the Philippines.Amatong, a career official of the Department of Finance (DOF), served in President Arroyo’s Cabinet for exactly 13 months. She replaced Jose Isidro Camacho, who resigned in December 2003.
Emerging from a late meeting of the Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC), Amatong told reporters that she was being replaced by Trade Secretary Cesar Purisima, who is often tagged as the President’s right-hand man in her economic team.
"(Purisima) was offered the position (of DOF chief) and he has accepted," Amatong said.
It is believed that Amatong is a potential appointee to the Monetary Board (MB), though she declined to confirm or deny reports that she was offered the post. She already sits on the MB as an ex officio member.
However, Amatong is not ruling out the possibility of accepting the appointment if she is offered the MB seat to replace three members whose terms are scheduled to expire this year.
Amatong was evasive about the details of her resignation, however, vehemently denying that she was being fired in favor of Purisima so the Arroyo administration can create the semblance of a fresh start and push its legislative agenda before Congress.
Her resignation came in the wake of a credit rating downgrade by Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, which put the Philippines on a list of less than five countries facing downgrades in all of Asia.
Amatong said she informed the President that she wanted to give up the DOF post immediately after the May elections.
"That was my intention from the start, so it will be a relief to finally be able to retire," she said. "It’s been a good experience but I don’t want a high-pressure job."
She said she will turn the DOF helm over to Purisima on Feb. 15, adding that, "after that, I am a liberated person."
Amatong said Purisima’s post as trade secretary will be assumed by Juan Santos, former chief executive officer (CEO) of Nestle Philippines and former president of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).
"I don’t know whether there are other movements in the positions in the Cabinet," she added.
Amatong is a long-time DOF employee who retired in 1999 during the Estrada administration. Shortly after Mrs. Arroyo assumed the presidency in 2001, Amatong was appointed DOF undersecretary for international finance.
When Camacho resigned in 2003, Amatong was first appointed acting finance secretary until her appointment was made permanent.
However, Amatong was never confirmed by the Commission on Appointments.
At Malacañang, presidential communications director Silvestre Afable Jr. expressed regret over Amatong’s resignation.
"Sayang siya," Afable said. "She was the one who bore the brunt of explaining the revenue measures which have advanced a good way forward."
Amatong, he said, "is among the most experienced" members of the President’s economic team, having worked "both in the Philippines and financial institutions abroad."
At the House of Representatives, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said the latest debilitating credit downgrade should prompt Mrs. Arroyo to undertake a major revamp of her economic team.
Salceda chairs the House committee on economic affairs and is a member of the President’s Economic Manager’s Group.
He suggested that Mrs. Arroyo tap the private sector, which is "a rich repository of executive talent," to fill up vacancies in the economic team.
"A revamp of the economic team is definitely a positive and proportional response to the (credit rating) downgrade," Salceda said. "This is a strategic recommendation to the President."
Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said a one-notch credit downgrade can cost the country an additional P20 billion in interest payments.
Salceda, who played a key role in crafting the President’s economic agenda, particularly the segments addressing the fiscal crisis, said there has been "long-crying need for a towering figure with both international and domestic stature" in the Cabinet to formulate and articulate a coherent and cohesive public policy and fiscal strategy.
A ranking administration lawmaker said "heads will roll" soon in the administration’s economic team.
He said Purisima has the communication skills and the grasp of financial issues needed for the post.
Salceda noted that the post of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) governor will soon have to be filled.
"We need fresh faces to rekindle public confidence in the fiscal road map and new blood to launch these initiatives," he said, adding that the President should "tolerate a little dissent to generate creative tension in Cabinet policy discussions."
The fiscal road map was earlier described as "a necessary pain package" of economic measures, basically revenue operation through taxes and cost-cutting and savings, that aims to avert a full-blown financial crisis and balance the budget by 2008.
Salceda named Xavier Loinaz, former president of the Bank of the Philippine Islands, and Octavio Espiritu, formerly of Far East Bank and Trust Co., as possible successors to outgoing BSP Gov. Rafael Buenaventura, who retires in March after serving a fixed term of six years.
He said Mrs. Arroyo enjoys expansive access to the private sector, thus, she must "get top guns to help her make a strategy, articulate and execute it."
"She must create a culture of technocracy, not bureaucracy," Salceda said.
He added that while the President forms an international board of advisors composed of the CEOs of top international companies and financial institutions, she should also create an economic coordinating council composed of taipans, officials of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, MAP, Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Financial Executives Association of the Philippines and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines that she can regularly consult and get the business sector on board the government’s programs. - With Paolo Romero, Marichu Villanueva
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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