By Manny Piñol
The long wait is over.
Presidential campaign spokesman and now Deputy Cabinet secretary Peter Tiu Laviña has been chosen by President Rody Duterte as the new administrator of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).
Maguindanao engineer Czar Sulaik, whom I have earlier recommended to be NIA administrator, will assume as Deputy Administrator for Operations.
Sec. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, special exec. asst. to President Duterte, informed me of the appointment of Laviña and Sulaik to the two top posts of the water agency yesterday in Malacañang.
Laviña’s appointment as the new NIA head is a welcome relief for the Dept. of Agriculture especially since the agency, while officially under the Office of the President, is one of the most important agencies supporting Philippine agriculture.
Laviña, whose wife Evelyn is Undersecretary of the Dept. of Agriculture, brings with him a public service record un-tainted by corruption.
He served as a young special assistant to then Mayor Duterte before he was elected councillor of the City of Davao.
During the Presidential campaign, Pete handled the role of an able spokesperson who articulated the position of then presidential candidate Duterte because of his closeness to the then city mayor.
With Laviña at the helm of NIA, I expect a smoother coordination between the DA and the water agency of the government, especially in the area of the scheduling of the release of irrigation water for the rice farms which had been a problematic issue for so long.
Sulaik, who was the provincial irrigation officer of North Cotabato when I was Governor, is a Maguindanao-Ilocano mixed blood from Cotabato City.
A hesitant candidate for the top NIA post, he agreed to settle for the position of Deputy Administrator for Operations after I informed him of President Duterte’s choice of Laviña as NIA administrator.
(File photos of Pete Laviña and Czar Sulaik downloaded from Google.)
More Stories
Bamboo Goat House Model Now Ready For Occupancy!
What A Stupid Question! 🤣🤣🤣
Breadfruit Grows Fast In My Dreamed Food Forest!