PALACE MULLS CHINESE HOLIDAY / PCGG ABOLITION MAY NEED LEGISLATION
MANILA, JANUARY 13, 2011 (STAR) Malacañang is looking into the possibility of including the Chinese New Year in the country's more than a dozen holidays.
Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said President Aquino has instructed the executive secretary to check if it would be necessary to declare the Chinese New Year a holiday, reportedly in response to clamor from the local Chinese community. This year's Chinese New Year falls on Feb. 3.
The President himself is part Chinese. Lacierda is also of Chinese descent and speaks fluent Mandarin and Fookien.
Last December, Aquino released a list of holidays for this year through Proclamation 84. His list is a deviation from the so-called holiday economics of his predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who is now a Pampanga congresswoman.
In Arroyo's time, holidays were usually observed near weekends to give Filipinos long vacations.
Aquino said Filipinos should properly commemorate major historical and cultural events and that politics has nothing to do with his decision to do away with holiday economics.
"I was given a set of three choices, I chose the one that didn't disrupt our people's ability to make a living," Aquino said.
Aquino also rejected insinuations that an employers' group lobbied for the cancellation of Arroyo's holiday economics policy.
"My point No.1 is we have to pay proper respect. No.2, we have to minimize disruption in the economy. A holiday that falls on a weekend is observed on the same day so that daily wage earners can earn more," he said.
Republic Act 9492 sets special and regular holidays and provides that holidays, except those religious in nature, are moved to the nearest Monday.
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Eduardo de Mesa said it is within the President's prerogative to move "holidays that are movable" to the nearest Monday.
"That is within his discretion," De Mesa said.
PCGG ABOLITION MAY NEED LEGISLATION - PALACE
(STAR) By Delon Porcalla - A Palace official yesterday said the abolition of the 25-year-old Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) may have to be legislated.
Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte also said the PCGG has to discuss with the Department of Justice (DOJ) the turnover of ongoing cases against the Marcoses before the Sandiganbayan.
"We leave it to the DOJ and to the PCGG to hammer out all the finer details... such that there has to be determination whether legislation is needed to abolish the PCGG," Valte said.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima earlier said the DOJ will require additional budget if all pending cases handled by the PCGG will be turned over to a unit under the department.
President Aquino said he is awaiting the report of PCGG officials on whether or not they have completed their task and if the remaining functions could be turned over to other government agencies.
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has expressed support for the planned abolition of PCGG, saying it was long overdue. "It (PCGG) was always envisioned to be a temporary thing and now how temporary is it? More than 20 years already," he said.
PCGG chairman Andres Bautista earlier announced the plan to abolish the agency in two years. Belmonte said setting the timetable for the agency's abolition would "impose a deadline on those sitting in the agency."
"They (PCGG commissioners) would do what they can in the next two years, instead of just rolling it, and saying we have all the time to do it. They would really have a sense of urgency in doing their jobs," he said.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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