MALACAÑANG accepted the resignation of Transportation Assistant Secretary Nilo Jatico, Air Transportation Office (ATO) chief, on November 12, leaving the aviation office in the hands of executive director Daniel Dimagiba.

Jatico’s resignation was accepted, reports said, following his run-in with a Malacañang official.

Details of the quarrel were not revealed.

Malacañang is now looking for Jatico’s replacement and it has been rumored at the Ato that former Philippine Airlines pilot Jacinto Ortega, who held the same post from 1998 to 2001, would be recalled back to run the sensitive office.

After Ortega left, retired Maj. Gen. Adelberto Yap held the post for two years.

Jatico relieved Yap. Both served in the Air Force.

However, it was also reported that another general in the Air Force, who is now assigned in Batangas, is being eyed by the Palace to replace Jatico.

Under the law, the ATO chief should be either a licensed pilot or an air-traffic controller.

Dimagiba is neither, but he is an aeronautical engineering graduate. His advantage is that he rose from the ranks and knows the ins and outs of aviation.

Jatico was suspended for three months starting November for his alleged failure to liquidate some P1.2 million in cash advances for three years.

When interviewed, he said he had liquidated the money but it was the ATO accounting office that failed to remit the amount to the treasury. ATO insiders said Jatico was booted out because he incurred
the ire of a powerful Malacañang official.

When informed of his suspension early this month, Jatico said he would rather resign.

“I was a general for many years and I was never accused of any wrongdoing,” he said.

During his four years at the Ato, Jatico was able to activate a long-pending bill titled Civil Aeronautics Administration Bill that would make the ATO an “authority” similar to the Manila International Airport Authority, with inherent rights to disburse its own income.

The bill was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Edgardo Angara, while Jatico’s fellow Negrense, Lakas Rep. Monico Puentevella of Bacolod City, is pushing the bill in the House of Representatives.

The ATO earns P3 billion a year from air navigational charges but all of its revenues are remitted to the national treasury.

In return, it gets its budget from the Department of Transportation and Communications, which provided it a P1-billion budget this year.

The amount is barely able to cover salaries and other expenditures of the agency.

THE National Police has launched a manhunt for the 12 suspects in the killings of political activists and journalists as part of its stepped-up efforts to speed up the resolution of 141  validated incidents of unexplained killings in the country.

MALACAÑANG accepted the resignation of Transportation Assistant Secretary Nilo Jatico, Air Transportation Office (ATO) chief, on November 12, leaving the aviation office in the hands of executive director Daniel Dimagiba.

CONTROVERSIAL Pampanga Gov. Eddie Panlilio is aking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to issue an opinion declaring as unconstitutional an ordinance enacted by the provincial board on October 22, giving town mayors the authority to supervise quarrying activities, including the collection of fees and taxes from quarry operators.

THE 2007 Gusi Peace Prize Awards, Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize, were given to 15 eminent personalities from all over the world, including three Filipinos, in ceremonies held at the Meralco Theater in Pasig City on November 21.

THE lawyer of a business tycoon has chided the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) for its failure to bring to the Sandiganbyan the son of the late dictator, who promised to present and testify on original documents purportedly showing that his late father, former President Ferdinand Marcos, owns 60 percent of nine of Lucio Tan’s companies.

A SELLER of pirated software was convicted by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Manila and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of P50,000.