Duterte appoints new SRA administrator

President Rodrigo Duterte has appointed Hermenegildo Serafica as the new Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) administrator despite his alleged involvement in the agency's hiring of overpaid consultant — which is exactly the same reason why the Chief Executive was furious about SRA.

Serafica's appointment letter was approved on Tuesday, which happened just a day after Duterte signed the resignation letter of former SRA chief Anna Rosario Paner and on the same day as the latter came forward to say that Duterte was misinformed about what's going on within SRA.

To recall, Paner got out of SRA amid the allegations that the agency has been hiring overpaid consultants.

In a briefing on Tuesday, Paner insisted that she did not gain anything from any contract that SRA entered into, even the ones that particularly involved the hiring of overpaid consultants.

The consultants, according to her, were hired to help the agency implement the project entitled "Formulation of Disaster Risk Reduction Management Program (DRRMP) for the Sugarcane Industry" with a project duration of six months from December 16, 2016 to June 15, 2017 and with total cost of R3 million.

This project particularly required the hiring of a lead DRRMP expert or consultant with a compensation of R20,000 per hour for 60 hours or a total of R1.2 million for six months — minus a 15 percent tax — and three expert assistants with monthly salaries of R52,000, each inclusive of 10 percent tax in the December to June period.

Paner said that this was all approved by the members of the SRA Board including Serafica and Roland Beltran, who were the ones who allegedly reported to Duterte about the contracts.

This was consistent with an earlier interview with Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol where he acknowledged that it is likely that Beltran and Serafica were indeed involved in the hiring of these consultants.

But he was quick to add that these officials were not clearly briefed on the nature of the deal.

In contrast, Paner said that Serafica and Beltran — who have been receiving a R20,000 per diem every board meeting — were both present in all the board meetings discussing the project.

"This is also why I chose to break my silence because I have a reason to believe that the President was misinformed by the so-called whistle blowers which formed the basis of the president's misgivings on SRA," Paner said.

In a separate interview on Tuesday, Piñol said he will ask Serafica to clear this issue and that he will not call for any investigation on the anomalies among SRA board unless somebody formally filed a complaint against them.

He also challenged Paner to come forward and make formal all her allegations against Serafica and Beltran.