Diño is DILG Undersecretary

CITY

OF SAN FERNANDO -- Former Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman Martin Diño will have a new job, after all.

Diño, who was replaced this week by President Duterte by SBMA Administrator Wilma Eisma, said the President himself told him that he will be appointed as Undersecretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government for barangay affairs.

" The President told me personally about my new post," Diño said in a telephone interview by Sun Star Pampanga yesterday afternoon. He said he has not received his appointment papers yet.

Diño said he will stay at SBMA until September 15, "although they are already rushing me me out of the place". He did not give details.

Duterte ended the long-standing conflict between Diño and Eisma by merging the two positions which earlier created by former president and now Pampanga second district Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo--- both apparently for political accommodat i on.

Dino is credited for the election of Duterte as president when he withdrew his candidacy for the same post in favor of the former Davao City mayor.

Eisma, a former corporate lawyer, is said to be close to Sen. Richard Gordon, who has been

accused by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV of defending the Dutertes.

Diño, a former barangay chairman in Quezon City and former chair of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, was appointed at SBMA in September last year.

Sources said he has yet to receive his salary since he assumed the SBMA post. - NCS