3 of 5 DoTC undersecretaries to leave with De Jesus

MANILA, Philippines – Three top officials recruited by Secretary Jose de Jesus to help implement reforms at the Department of Transportation and Communications are leaving their posts to give the department’s next head a free hand to choose his own team.

Undersecretaries Glicerio Sicat, Ruben Reinoso and Dante Velasco said they would leave the DoTC on June 30, the same day De Jesus’ resignation takes effect.

Sicat, who heads the department’s aviation group, said he had tendered his resignation and would return to the private sector.

Reinoso, head of the DoTC’s planning and project development sector, will return to his old post as an assistant director general at the National Economic Development Authority.

Velasco said he would focus on his post as undersecretary at the Office of the President working under Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa. He has held this post concurrently with his job at the DoTC for the past two months, he said.

All three were recruited by De Jesus and assumed their respective posts at the DoTC last July.

“It’s very important to give the next secretary a free hand to create his own team,” Sicat said at a press conference on Friday.

News of the three officials’ departure from the DoTC comes after De Jesus tendered his resignation earlier this week, saying he would leave government to rejoin the private sector. His resignation takes effect at the end of the month, exactly a year after took the job.

Aristotle Batuhan, the DoTC’s undersecretary for legal affairs, said he would stay at his post unless asked by the President to leave.