No posthumous confirmation for Robredo

Published August 30, 2012 12:22pm

It's final. There will be no posthumous confirmation to the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo.

On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said the bicameral Commission on Appointments decided not to confer such undertaking.

It was also Sotto, who chairs the CA interior and local government committee, who earlier said that he would ask the body's leadership on the possibility of giving a posthumous confirmation to Robredo. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who chairs the CA, then said he will study it.

But during Thursday's weekly forum at the Senate, Sotto said Enrile and the other CA members agreed not to confer the confirmation.

"Sabi nila we can't do that [since] there's no benefit for the nominee or even for the family of the nominee," he told reporters.

He explained that the CA had previously awarded a posthumous confirmation to a general but only so that the nominee's family will be able to claim the benefits the deceased nominee was supposed to get. But in Robredo's case, his family wouldn't get anything if he is given a posthumous confirmation.

Earlier, Sen. Franklin Drilon said giving Robredo a posthumous confirmation is not possible under the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

"What we confirm is the appointment of the official. In the case of Sec. Robredo, what is before the commission is an ad interim appointment which under the Constitution we must confirm. [But] the appointment would terminate and would lapse upon the death of the appointee so there is no more appointment to confirm," Drilon said last week.

Aslo last week, Enrile said that with or without confirmation, Robredo will be remembered as a public servant.

“Whether he was confirmed or not, it makes no difference. He had a valid appointment as Secretary. He will be a Secretary of Interior and Local Government in the political history of this country,” he said. Robredo died in a plane crash in Masbate on August 18. The pilot and co-pilot of the ill-fated Piper Seneca plane also died in the incident. Only Robredo's aide-de-camp survived the tragedy. Robredo was laid to rest in his hometown of Naga City on Tuesday. — Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ, GMA News

Tags: jesserobredo, commissiononappointments