Citing issues surrounding his citizenship and pending libel case before the Supreme Court, the congressional Commission on Appointments’ screening committee on Tuesday deferred the confirmation of former journalist Erwin T. Tulfo as Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
Rep. Oscar Malapitan raised the issue on Tulfo’s citizenship, noting that the latter became an enlisted personnel of the United States Army from 1988 to 1992, while Rep. Rodante Marcoleta questioned Tulfo, a former newspaperman, about his conviction at the lower court on four counts of libel now pending before the Supreme Court.
Tulfo, in turn, requested an executive session to answer and clarify the concerns of Malapitan and Marcoleta.
Not without an ally, Senator Christopher Go affirmed support for the Cabinet appointment of Tulfo as Secretary of Social Welfare and Development during the Commission on Appointments confirmation hearing on Tuesday, November 22.
Go noted the DSWD is the primary government agency mandated to develop, implement and coordinate social protection and poverty reduction solutions for the poor. The senator stressed that the DSWD is an important agency that focuses on the poor and the marginalized.
“I have only one thing to ask Secretary Tulfo: please do not neglect the poor and the helpless. Those who do not have somebody to turn to. But I know your heart is for the poor,” Go told the DSWD secretary designate.
Sen. Francis “Chiz” G. Escudero also came to the defense of Tulfo and reminded the body on the pending bills filed before Congress to decriminalize libel.
Escudero cited the pending bills following the issue raised by SAGIP Party-list Rep. Rodante D. Marcoleta against Tulfo who was convicted of four counts of libel case at the Pasay City Regional Trial Court and upheld by the Court of Appeals. The case has been pending before the Supreme Court. “I would like to state for the record as well that there are many pending bills, both in the House and in the Senate, to decriminalize libel…I myself, I’m an author of a bill seeking to decriminalize libel. So if this will be taken against the nominee and later on that bill is approved by the Congress, I think it will be prejudicial to say the least and unfair if we would be taking that against him,” Escudero said. Butch Fernandez