Duterte renews Ramon Tulfo’s appointment as special envoy to China, names new National Statistician

President Rodrigo Duterte has renewed the appointment of Ramon Tulfo as special envoy to China, months after local labor groups demanded him to resign after saying that Filipino construction workers were lazy and slow compared to Chinese laborers.

Duterte signed on Monday the appointment paper of Tulfo for another six-month term as the President’s special envoy for public diplomacy to China. Tulfo was first appointed to the post in October last year.

The President also appointed Dennis Mapa as National Statistician, replacing Lisa Grace Bersales whose term expired in April. A former dean of the University of the Philippines School of Statistics, Mapa will serve a five-year term as head of the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Tulfo, a newspaper columnist, drew the ire of labor groups after he criticized early this year the work ethic of Filipino construction workers.

He shunned calls for him to resign and clarified that the Filipino workers he was referring to when he first made his remarks were those based in the Philippines.

Instead of taking exception to his statements, the labor sector should take this as a wake up call so that they can step up with their work ethic, Tulfo said in March. — Virgil Lopez/RSJ, GMA News