Arroyo ex-poll lawyer Alberto Agra is incoming SolGen

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has appointed her former election lawyer as the new Solicitor General, replacing Agnes Devanadera who is concurrent Justice secretary.

In a phone interview with GMANews.TV, Alberto Agra said he received a New Year’s message from the Department of Justice on Thursday morning, saying that he would be the head of the Office of the Solicitor General, the agency that represents the government in any litigation or legal matter. "I haven’t received the appointment papers yet. I’m just the incoming, but we don’t know if it’s really me," Agra said. Agra, who heads the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, served as the President’s laywer during impeachment proceedings at the House of Representatives in 2006. Lawyer Romulo Macalintal also told GMANews.TV that he and Agra represented the President in “election-related issues in 2004." In March 2007, Mrs. Arroyo appointed Agra as head of the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, the agency that acts as lawyers for government-owned and controlled corporations. In June 2008, Agra quit as acting head of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) Regulatory Office, owing to conflict of interest allegations. Agra is a professor at the Ateneo School of Law since 1993. He teaches election law, the 1991 Local Government Code, Law on Public/Government Corporations, Administrative Law, and Law on Public Officers. He was also an executive director of the Saligan, a civic organization offering legal assistance and doing developmental legal work with women, workers, farmers, fishers, the urban poor and local communities. - RSJ, RJAB, Jr./GMANews.TV