MANILA, 30 May 2006 — After several years of vacillating, Philippine Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas finally told President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo that she intends to leave public service and return to the private sector.
Newspaper reports are speculating that Sto. Tomas is being considered to head the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), a statement she refuses to confirm.
“I will do everything that I can to help the president and the country ...but I need a little break, I’ve been working all my life in the government,” Sto. Tomas said. She also said she did not want her departure from the department to affect the gains in the economy, especially on the aspect of employment.
Sto. Tomas reportedly told a Philippine newspaper she recommended her four undersecretaries and three others as her possible replacement — Government Mass Media Group head Cerge Remonde, Court of Appeals Justice Arturo Brion, who was also a former labor undersecretary, and Presidential Management Staff chief Arthur Yap.
The current labor secretary is one of the enduring women in the president’s official family, having been a Cabinet secretary for as long as Arroyo has been in power.
Previously the head of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Sto. Tomas is no stranger to the demands of the job.
Recently however, several Malacañang Palace sources were quoted by a newspaper as saying the president was seriously considering appointing Sto. Tomas as DBP chair after the labor secretary was heard to have sounded off about being drained by the rigors of holding the same job for the past five years and five months.
Sto. Tomas is considered one of the most dependable of the president’s Cabinet officials, proving her mettle in handling key labor issues both in the domestic front — such as the controversy-ridden Hacienda Luisita strike and successive wage hike petitions — and international front, such as the kidnapping of Filipino worker Angelo de la Cruz in Iraq.
She also proved her loyalty to the president when she stuck by her throughout the crisis in July 2005 when her several senior Cabinet officials resigned and demanded that the president do the same.
