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Marc Jayson Cayabyab - The Philippine Star
March 18, 2026 | 12:00am
The Commission on Appointments (CA) confirms the ad interim appointments of 57 generals, flag officers, and senior officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines at the Senate on March 17, 2026.
STAR / Ryan Baldemor
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Appointments (CA) will seek clarification from Malacañang about the acting status of Cabinet secretaries.
“We will take it up. I’m sure the commission would be able to ask the executive department on this matter,” CA chair Senate President Vicente Sotto III said.
Senators Imee Marcos and Rodante Marcoleta expressed their concern during the CA plenary session that the acting status of these secretaries allowed them to skirt the CA confirmation process.
Those in acting capacity are Executive Secretary Ralph Recto as well as Secretar ies Vince Dizon of public works, Giovanni Lopez of transportation, Fredderick Vida of justice, Frederick Go of finance, Rolando Toledo of budget, Juan Miguel Cuna of DENR and Dave Gomez of the Presidential Communications Office.
“It is true that the Supreme Court in Pimentel Jr. vs. Arroyo recognized the appointments in an acting capacity and the President’s power to make them. But the Court was equally clear in warning that acting appointments, while permissible as temporary stop-gap measures, if abused, can also be a way of circumventing the need for confirmation by the Commission on Appointments,” Marcos said.
“And that is precisely the danger now confronting us. What we are witnessing is no longer the occasional temporary designation made out of necessity, out of urgency; what we are instead witnessing is the normalization of acting appointments as a governing strategy,” she added.
Marcoleta for his part said the President cannot bypass the CA, “an independent body (that) has to work.”
Secretaries serving in an acting capacity are those appointed while Congress is in session. Those appointed during the break are ad interim appointees.
According to the 1987 Constitution, the President can make appointments during the Congress recess, “but such appointments shall be effective only until disapproval by the Commission on Appointments or until the next adjournment of the Congress.”
The Senate will adjourn session this week for the Holy Week break and will resume on May 4.
AFP officers confirmed
Meanwhile, 57 Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) officers hurdled the CA yesterday as the commission also deferred its ruling to strike out Sen. Marcoleta’s controversial “give up the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG)” remark.
The Kalayaan municipal government’s request to strike out Marcoleta’s remarks from its records, and Marcoleta’s motion to amend its records to remove his controversial remarks, are still pending with the CA rules committee.
Among the 57 flag officers, generals and senior officers of the AFP whose ad interim appointments and nominations were confirmed by the CA is Col. Jacquelyn Cloma, married to a descendant of KIG discoverer Tomas Cloma.
Cloma said her husband is a great-grandson, because his mother is a cousin of the late discoverer.
Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson noticed her last name and asked her to send the Cloma family his regards.
“Please extend my regards and I’d like to thank him on behalf of his lolo-sa-tuhod (great grandfather), Tomas Cloma, for discovering and occupying and owning and donating to the Philippine government the Kalayaan Island Group,” Lacson said.
