Senate President Zubiri grilled the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority for having too many deputy directors general, pointing out that this is a violation of the law.
The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has been grilled due to the agency having excess deputy directors general.
Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva issued an alert after another deputy general was appointed, making it the fifth executive to be appointed, Inquirer reported.
“We have four and just recently, we appointed another deputy director general. My question is, do we need additional deputy director general?” Villanueva asked during the Senate plenary session about the proposed national budget for 2023.
Villanueva also noted that Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma, who currently chairs the TESDA board, was not consulted before the appointment.
Based on the TESDA Act of 1994, the president could only designate two deputy director general on the recommendation of the TESDA board.
TESDA Chief Danilo Cruz also confirmed that the law does indeed allow only two deputy director general to be appointed.
Cruz explained this was increased to four during the Duterte administration. When the position of deputy director general was assumed a few months ago, the agency submitted an application for four of them.
Cruz mentioned that he was not consulted or asked to endorse the latest appointee. However, he indicated that TESDA's existing tasks could be handled by the four deputy director generals.
“Having received the appointment of the fifth one, everybody can contribute to the job of TESDA, and right now, we’re just thinking of designating him as deputy director general for a special concern.” Cruz said.
Violation of the law
However, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri further grilled Cruz for the excessive appointment of deputy director generals.
“You came up with two new items without amending the law. Therefore, you are in violation of the law.” Zubiri said.
In response, Cruz said that this is happening a lot to other government institutions.
“The reasoning that it is being done by others should not be the right and legal reason.” Zubiri asserted.
“Just because it is being violated by other agencies, it should also be violated by TESDA. What we should do is clamp down on those other agencies as well.”
Tags: #TESDA, #Executives, #Violation