Duterte offers DPWH post to Mark Villar

Las Piñas City Rep. Mark Villar will sit in the Cabinet of presumptive president Rodrigo Duterte.

The camp of Villar told GMA News Online on Tuesday that Duterte offered the post of Secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways in a meeting with the lawmaker on Monday evening. 

Villar, meanwhile, said he accepted the offer.

“I confirm that Presumptive President Rody Duterte asked me to be his DPWH Secretary and after consulting with my family and constituents, I have decided to humbly accept his offer,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

Villar, who had just been reelected as representative of Las Piñas, was in Davao City with his parents, former Senate president Manny Villar and incumbent Sen. Cynthia Villar. 

A source from the camp told GMA News Online that the decision was made after consultations were conducted following Duterte's offer on Monday.

The camp has yet to finalize the technicalities on who will replace Villar as the Las Piñas representative.

Duterte and the congressman's parents on Monday forged an alliance between the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas Ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) and the Nacionalista Party.

The signing of the "coalition for change agreement" was done after Duterte's first press conference after the May 9 elections.

In 2008, former senator Villar was accused of making a double entry of P200 million funds for the C-5 extension project in the national budget.

The former senator was also accused of exerting his influence on the DPWH so that the road extension project will pass through his real estate properties.

The elder Villar had denied the allegations.

During the press conference, Duterte revealed several names of possible members of his Cabinet.

He also announced that he is willing to offer four Cabinet seats to members of the Communist Party of the Philippines. —reports from Trisha Macas, Cedric Castillo and Xianne Arcangel/ALG/KG/KBK, GMA News