DAVAO CITY—Hoping to “remove all cloudiness and vagueness” about his appointment as head of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) in the next administration, professor Jose David Lapuz on Wednesday recounted how his former student, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, tapped him to be the new chief of the all-important agency.

Lapuz also confirmed what Ateneo de Davao University president Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ, Lapuz earlier told Inquirer.net—that Duterte had offered Lapuz the chairmanship of the CHEd during a very early meeting at the presidential guesthouse here last week.

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This even as the CHEd still has a sitting chair in the person of Patricia Licuanan whose term will not expire until 2018.

“Let me say once and for all: I have been appointed chairman of CHEd by President Rody Duterte personally and in the presence of a room full of visitors and admirers on June 6, 2016, Wednesday morning at 2:30 a.m., in Malacañang of the South, Barangay Panacan, Davao City; and therefore I am so very grateful to my former student in the early 1960s at the Lyceum of the Philippines, President Duterte,” Lapuz said in a Facebook message to this reporter.

‘Truth will prevail’

“In all this confusion, I tell you the truth will prevail. This is what I call the sovereignty and power of the truth,” he added.

Lapuz was apparently responding to the flak he received on Facebook following the announcement of his appointment.

Lapuz would be replacing Licuanan, who was first appointed in 2010 by President Aquino to a four-year term, which is fixed by law. In 2014, she was reappointed by Mr. Aquino with her second term expiring in 2018. The CHEd is under the Office of the President.

Republic Act No. 7722, the law that created the CHEd, mandates the President to appoint a chair and four commissioners who hold earned doctorate degrees and who have been actively engaged in higher education for at least 10 years.

Licuanan: Up to Duterte

Asked about her replacement, Licuanan was quoted as saying: “Let it come from the President-elect himself.”

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Lapuz said his early morning meeting with Duterte—which he detailed in his blog—began with him making a presentation on why he wanted to be CHEd chair in the next administration.

He narrated: “After this presentation, you (Duterte) asked me, ‘do you want to serve the government?’ I answered ‘Yes.’

‘As what? In what capacity?’ you asked me.

‘As chairman of CHEd,’ I replied.

“‘Yes,’ you President Rody Duterte quickly replied as witnessed and heard by the people inside the room. Then we had greetings and felicitations and then we had a last photography (sic) where I stood beside you and I repeated: ‘Did I hear you correctly that you have appointed me as chair of CHEd?’

‘Yes,’ you replied again,” Lapuz wrote in his blog./rga

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