CA panel defers appointment of DSWD chief
DUE to issues surrounding his citizenship and ending libel case before the Supreme Court (SC), the Commission on Appointment’s (CA) Committee on Labor, Employment, Social Welfare, and Migrant Workers on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022, defers the ad interim appointment of former journalist and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) chief.
Representative Oscar Malapitan raised the issue of Tulfo’s citizenship, noting that the latter became an enlisted personnel of the United States Army from 1988 to 1992. Rep. Rodante Marcoleta, on the hand, questioned Tulfo about his conviction at the Lower Court of four counts of libel and now pending before the SC. Tulfo, for his part, asked for an Executive Session to answer the concerns of Malapitan and Marcoleta.
Sen. Francis Chiz Escudero, during the hearing, reminds the body of the pending bills filed before Congress to decriminalize libel.
Escudero cited the pending bills following the issue raised by SAGIP Party-list Rep. Marcoleta against Tulfo, who was convicted of libel at the Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) and upheld by the Court of Appeals (CA).
“I would like to state for the record that there are many pending bills, both in the House and in the Senate, to decriminalize libel. I am an author of a bill seeking to decriminalize libel. So if this will be taken against the nominee and later on that bill is approved by Congress. I think it will be prejudicial, to say the least, and unfair if we take that against him,” Escudero said.
Sen. Christopher Bong Go also supports Tulfo explaining that the DSWD is the primary government agency mandated to develop, implement and coordinate social protection and poverty reduction solutions for the poor.
He said the DSWD is an important agency that focuses on the poor and the marginalized.
“I have only one thing to ask, and that is for him not to neglect the poor,” Go said during the deliberation as he stressed the need to give Tulfo a fighting chance to do his job as chief of the DSWD.
