Malacañang: No confirmation on Francisco Laurel’s appointment as Agriculture Secretary yet

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has not yet confirmed the appointment of Francisco Laurel as Agriculture Secretary, Malacañang said on Sunday.

In a Viber message, Presidential Communications Office Secretary Cheloy Garafil denied the rumors after several reports mentioned that Marcos had been eyeing Laurel to lead the agriculture department.

"No confirmation yet," Garafil said when asked to confirm the reports.

Laurel, owner of one of the largest deep sea fishing firms in the world, Frabelle, is one of Marcos' campaign supporters.

The family-run company has other holdings in aquaculture, canning, food production and processing, food trade and imports, cold storage, shipbuilding activities, wharf construction, land development, and power generating.

Laurel, a University of Santo Tomas computer science graduate, was previously selected to serve on a business sector advisory committee established by Marcos.

Meanwhile, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin told Anthony Taberna in an interview last week that Marcos is considering delegating his post as an Agriculture Secretary to someone else.

Some lawmakers and groups have likewise urged Marcos to appoint a full-time DA Secretary. In recent months, the government has been battling issues with agricultural hoarding and smuggling that affect commodity prices and supply.

Bersamin said that Marcos, who has been the Agriculture Secretary since June 2022, knows that the latter needs a regular secretary to head the DA amid numerous issues facing the agriculture sector.

"I think he's carefully considering who should be the agriculture secretary because the agriculture portfolio has a lot of issues," Bersamin said.

The Executive Secretary added that he does not have any information yet on who Marcos favors to give the post, but he believes the President is on his way to making a decision.

"He can't just leave it in the hands of people who can't decide quickly on a regular secretary. So I do not like to second-guess the President," Bersamin said.

During the turnover of 20,000 metric tons of urea fertilizer donated by China last June, Marcos said that he wished to make structural changes to DA before he leaves the post as the Agriculture Secretary.

"What I aspire is by the time I leave the DA, we will have systems in place so that we can guarantee the food supply of the Philippines, number one; we can guarantee that the prices are affordable and, number three, that our farmers make a good living," the President said.