FRANCIS "CHIZ" G. ESCUDERO

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Thank you, Mr. Majority Floor Leader.

On behalf of your Committee on the Interior and Local Government, good afternoon.  

It is my honor to endorse the confirmation of the ad interim appointment of a civil servant who has the experience, the energy, and the ethics to run a department whose responsibility is as big as the organization it supervises.

I was once told that to properly evaluate a presidential appointee, we must first look at the mandate of the office before we measure the man.  The Administrative Code’s terse language on the powers of the DILG barely captures the work assigned to it.  If we have a bicameral Congress, Mr. Chair, we have a bifurcated government as well, and local governments represent the bigger and the better half of it.

Today there are 81 provinces, 146 cities, 1,488 municipalities, and 42,046 barangays.  They are the foundation of government, the frontlines of public service.  So, if the government were a building, the LGUs would be the ground floor, the receiving area where peoples’ dreams, pleas, complaints are acted upon, without the people in the ivory towers above even knowing about it.  But these are only a part of the large dominion that the Secretary of Interior and Local Government looks after.  Under the law, he also oversees, again as the President’s alter ego, a number of public order and security agencies. 

In the PNP, he has 209,000 people under arms.  In the BJMP, he has 183,000 inmates under guard.  In the Bureau of Fire Protection, he has 33,000 trained men and women under constant alert.  If the LGUs compose the frontlines of government service, the above agencies, Mr. Chair, are agencies that are the first responders.  Isama na rin po natin ang mga Lupong Tagapamayapa sa Barangay. They resolve more cases than our judiciary, at the fraction of the cost, and spared with the antics of some lawyers, including me, before when I was practicing.  

As DILG’s responsibilities are big, so is the budget footprint of the agencies and the local governments under it.  Halimbawa, para bigyan natin ng paghahalintulad, para sa taong 2023, ang budget ng DepED, ng State Universities and Colleges, TESDA at CHED ay 852 billion pag pinagsama-sama.  Magkano naman ang para sa DILG, sa mga ahensya tulad ng PNP, ang LGU, ang BJMP, aabot po sa 1.215 trillion.  This means that almost one peso in every four (Php4.00) pesos that we will budget for next year will go to agencies under the Department of Interior and Local Government.  With that amount of taxpayers’ money being funneled to this sector, the DILG, as part of its duties to optimize local government operations, acts as a fiscal police as well.  Sa ganito pong kalaking responsibilidad ng Kalihim ng DILG, ang tanong: Kaya po ba n’yang gampanan ang kanyang tungkulin bilang Kalihim?

Mr. Chair, distinguished colleagues, my answer is, “Yes, he can.”  He has been on the job for almost three (3) decades.  Hindi siya mag o-OJT.  He has been a Mayor for six (6) terms or eighteen (18) years.  He made a detour to the House of Representatives for three (3) years, chairing a major appropriations subcommittee.  This, in fact, is his second national office assignment.  First, as Chair of the MMDA, a hard post which is the bureaucratic equivalent of taking the hot seat, so to speak.

But in his impressive resume which catalogs local and global awards won, the one which I believe provided him with the best training for his latest work, was his being a Councilor for three (3) years. Nagsimula po siya sa baba, Mr. Chair, distinguished colleagues. 

So clearly, he has earned his spurs, worked himself up in  the local government ladder, and knows the terrain so he cannot be accused of being parachuted into unfamiliar ground.

Speaking of ground, he has not left, Mr. Chair, the barangay of his ancestors, the neighborhood where he grew up and is taking up residence there up to today.

By being embedded with the people he serves cancels the need for him to rely on feedback.

Mr. President, distinguished colleagues, the appointee is a lawyer, a great one at that, considering that he has gone to the wrong school, iba lang kami ng paaralan, but he will always, Mr. Chair,  be on the good side of the law. 

He is a just, decent, and fair man, and at times when power tempts its hold to take shortcuts, he can be relied on to take the high although harder road.

It is therefore my distinct pleasure, Mr. Chair, distinguished colleagues,  to endorse the confirmation of the ad interim appointment of Secretary Benjamin “Benhur” Abalos as Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Department.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.  Thank you, distinguished colleagues.