PHILIPPINE NEWS SERVICE — NEW and old faces will certainly be tapped in the Cabinet.
Thus People’s Tonight gathered even as Malacañang yesterday brushed aside as speculative the Cabinet rigodon yarn.
Deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez told Palace reporters a Cabinet revamp is baseless and purely gossips.
“The reports are not valid because we have not seen any document or received any official report of any movement in the Cabinet,” Golez said in a statement texted to Palace reporters.
But sources disclosed that several GMA allies will certainly assume their new posts in the Cabinet with the expiration of the one year ban for administration bets, who ran in the last elections under the Team Unity ticket.
Golez stressed that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has not made any hint through body English about changes in the Cabinet.
The Palace official reacted to reports that Armed Forces chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. will shortly be tapped by the President to replace Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, who will reportedly in turn assume the justice portfolio succeeding Secretary Raul M. Gonzalez.
Reports also claimed Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita will get an ambassadorial post and will be succeeded by Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno.
Palace officials stressed the Ermita talk is a recycled story. Golez said a Cabinet revamp has not been discussed in recent Cabinet meetings presided by the President.
Any Cabinet reshuffle is all a prerogative of the President and she usually keeps its close to her heart, Golez indicated, adding she usually makes the official announcement for any reshuffle in her Official Family.