4 in 10 unconfirmed: Stability, accountability compromised

Public governance and legal experts have called out the Marcos administration for appointing a record number of temporary heads of critical agencies, bypassing the government’s checks-and-balances mechanism.

The more critical posts have officials in acting or ad interim (unconfirmed by the Commission on Appointments) capacity.

They are ad interim Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, Finance Secretary Frederick Go, Budget and Management Secretary Kim Robert de Leon, Tourism Secretary Dita Angara-Mathay, Public Works and Highways Secretary Vince Dizon, Presidential Communications Office Secretary Dave Gomez, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Anna Liza Logan and Philippine Space Agency Secretary Joel Marciano Jr.

In an acting capacity are Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida, Labor and Employment Secretary Francis Tolentino, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Juan Miguel T. Cuna, and Transportation Secretary Giovanni Z. Lopez.

Under the Constitution, Cabinet secretaries must be confirmed by the bicameral Commission on Appointments, but the President can designate “acting” heads immediately without CA confirmation.

This keeps the agency running while the formal nomination is processed. The Palace has defended this as within the President’s constitutional prerogative, with officials citing existing law as the basis.

Normalizing governing strategy

Senator Imee Marcos has characterized it as a “rampant practice” of tapping acting secretaries to fill Cabinet vacancies to effectively bypass CA approval, calling it a “normalization of acting appointments as a governing strategy.”

Acting secretaries have limited authority, which some read as a deliberate constraint. Since they are unconfirmed, acting secretaries are described as having limited powers, “only routine administration... day-to-day operations, executive orders that are already existing,” with no discretionary authority or personnel movement.

Civil Service rules recognize that a person designated in an acting capacity may exercise discretion because they are effectively performing the functions of the office.

An ad interim official or officer-in-charge (OIC), by contrast, has more limited authority unless additional powers are expressly granted.

Control centralized

Such an arrangement suits an administration that wants centralized control rather than empowered department heads.

Senators said the current acting secretaries were mostly never formally submitted for confirmation in the first place, so the Commission on Appointments has nothing to bypass or act on.

According to legal expert and former University of the East College of Law Dean Amado Valdez, the rule is that Cabinet or portfolio secretaries must have their appointments confirmed by the CA.

“When not confirmed or when bypassed, they cannot continue and any act after that is not valid,” he explained.

Valdez said that officials in an acting capacity hinder initiative and ascendancy in the department they lead.