The leadership battle at the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) continues.
SRA officials and the head of its employees association, said they only acknowledge the leadership of Ignacio Santillana now.
But Hermenegildo Serafica maintains that he is still SRA administrator.
In a statement issued Sunday, July 24, Serafica said the designation of Santillana as OIC administrator by the three deputy administrators of SRA hinges solely on their erroneous interpretation that the SRA administrator is included among the positions declared vacant by the directive of the Office of the President under Memorandum Circular (MC) No.1.
Santillana, deputy administrators Brando Noroña and Guillermo Tejida, legal department manager Ronald Rimando and Marco Soriano, president of the employees association, of SRA in their “counter manifestation on the status quo on leadership” sent to Agriculture Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian on Friday, July 22 said “we only acknowledge one leadership now at the Sugar Regulatory Administration in the person of Atty. Ignacio S. Santillana”.
The counter manifestation was issued in response to a July 19 memorandum issued by Sebastian to maintain the “status quo on leadership” at the SRA.
They said for the record the OIC administrator of the SRA is Santillana on the strength of a joint memorandum dated July 4 that was issued in compliance with the directive of the Office of the President under MC 1.
MC 1 aims to ensure the smooth transition of the previous administration to the newly installed one. The MC deemed certain officials separated from the service and the positions held by them vacant, they said.
Serafica is no exemption, because the MC covers all presidential appointees whose appointments are classified as “co-terminus”, they added.
The tenure of Serafica ended the moment the term of President Rodrigo Duterte being the appointing authority ended, they said.
Serafica, in a statement sent by his executive assistant Jennifer Marie Artates on Sunday, asked who is pulling the wool over the eyes of the SRA employees, sugarcane industry stakeholders and media.
He said the claim that MC 1 states that all incumbent presidential appointees by June 30 are deemed vacated is a lie.
“It is clear that only certain positions are covered by MC 1… the position of SRA administrator does not belong in any of the four items enumerated (in MC1)”, he said.
“The SRA Administrator is an appointive director, appointed by the president, with a fixed term and as specified in RA 10149 sec. 17, appointive directors shall continue to hold office until their successors are appointed” he said.
It is the duty of the incumbent SRA board members including the administrator to remain in office until the new board members and administrator are appointed by the president, he added.
“As such the designation of Atty. Santillana as OIC Administrator by the three deputy administrators, is in fact null and void from the very beginning,” he added.
In fact, because of the insistence of the deputies of SRA not to honor the holdover capacity of the SRA board, several matters have been left pending for the past weeks since they issued their joint memorandum designating their own OIC, Serafica said.
Without the SRA board, the functions and delivery of services of SRA will be drastically impaired, he said.
Serafica said no board means no contracts and Memorandum of Agreements with beneficiaries of SRA programs can be approved, and imported sugar coming in and those already in the country cannot be approved for use in the domestic market.
No Board also means no approval for budget and realignment for necessary expenses, including no adjustment of wages for those whose daily wage has been increased by the wage board, Serafica said.
It also means that no sugar order including that which may augment the sugar supply can be approved and this may go as far as the sugar order issued at the end of August or first week of September which tells the industry what classification of sugar will be used for this coming crop year’s production, he added.
On July 11 the DA Legal Opinion that the SRA administrator was not covered by MC 1 was emailed to srahead@sra.gov.ph email which the deputies have full access and control of, he said.
On July 20 the DA released a memo from Sebastian addressed to all SRA and NFA employees on the Status Quo of Leadership of SRA and NFA, citing the DA legal opinion and Section 17 and 18 of RA 10149 or the GOCC Governance Act of 2011, he added.*