Ex-SC spokesperson Brian Hosaka named ICI executive director
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed former Supreme Court spokesperson Brian Hosaka as the executive director of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, which is tasked to investigate anomalous flood control projects.
According to Executive Order 94, which created the ICI, the executive director will head the panel's Secretariat and have the rank, emoluments, and privileges of an undersecretary.
Hosaka will be tasked with executing and administering the policies and decisions of the ICI, as well as managing its day-to-day operations.
Prior to this, Hosaka served as the spokesperson of the Supreme Court under Chief Justices Alexander Gesmundo, Diosdado Peralta, and now-Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin.
In 2023, he was named a commissioner of the Governance Commission for Government Owned or Controlled Corporations.
The new ICI executive director is also a founding partner of Paner Hosaka & Ypil Attorneys-at-Law.
Hosaka joins the ICI with chairperson Andres Reyes Jr., a retired SC associate justice, former Department of Public Works and Highways secretary Rogelio "Babes" Singson, and SGV Country Managing Partner Rossana Fajardo. Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, meanwhile, has been designated as a "special adviser who will act as investigator for the ICI."
The ICI is tasked to recommend the filing of appropriate charges and recommend to the appropriate government bodies the enforcement of remedies, corrective actions, or legislative measures.
The fact-finding body will get assistance from the Department of Justice, the National Bureau of Investigation, the National Prosecution Service, the DPWH, the Department of Interior and Local Government, the Philippine National Police, and offices in the national government's executive branch "to accomplish its mandates."
It also has the power to conduct hearings, take testimony, and receive, gather, review, and evaluate evidence, issue subpoenas for the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents, recommend to the DOJ the admission of a person as a state witness, and obtain information and documents from the Senate and the House of Representatives.