Marcos retains de Vera as CHED chairman, appoints several officials

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has reappointed Prospero de Vera III as chairman of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

De Vera served as chairman of CHED from October 2018 until July 21, 2022.

He was a commissioner of CHED since September 2016 and was appointed as officer-in-charge of the higher education regulatory body when its chair Patricia Licuanan resigned in January 2018.

Marcos also made official the appointment of Raphael Perpetuo Lotilla as secretary of the Department of Energy after the Department of Justice said he may take the post even if he served as an independent director in power firms Aboitiz Power and Exenor. 

Lotilla served as energy secretary from 2005 to 2007 during the term of then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

The President also retained Rosalia Villegas de Leon as National Treasurer of the Philippines.

Marcos also appointed the following:

• Franz Josef George Espina Alvarez as Acting President, Chief Executive Officer and Member, Board of Directors of the PNOC Exploration Corporation;
• Philippe Jones Lhuiller as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Spain, Including the Canary Islands;
• Pedro Ramirez Laylo as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the State of Israel;
• Emmanuel Buenaflor Salamat as Executive Director, National Secretariat of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict;
• Epimaco Verano Densing III as Undersecretary, Department of Education;
• Ferdinand Galvez Sevilla as President, Philippine Public Safety College, Department of the Interior and Local Government;
• Benny Diaz Antiporda as Acting Administrator and Member, Board of Directors of the National Irrigation Administration;
• Monica Prieto Teodoro: Special Envoy of the President to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); and
• Alex Quiroz: Chairman Governance Commission for Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations.

Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles said the officials have been appointed over the course of the week. —KG, GMA News