Ex-Pagasa chief Yumul in Atok mining board

MANILA, Philippines – Former weather bureau chief Graciano Yumul Jr. is now a director of Atok-Big Wedge Co. Inc, the mining firm controlled by businessman Roberto Ongpin.

At the annual stockholders’ meeting of Atok on Friday, April 20, Ongpin introduced Yumul as one of the firm’s newest board directors and executive vice president.

In an interview with Rappler later, he said he started his new role last March 15, around the time he also announced that he was taking an early retirement from government service.

Yumul served as Department of Science and Technology undersecretary for Research and Development, and also supervising undersecretary of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).

The bureau is one of the crucial units of government always dealing with typhoons and other weather disturbances.

Yumul said then that politics did not play a role in his decision to leave government, but “personal reasons” did.

“I applied for this job,” he told Rappler at the sidelines of the Atok mines event. “I’m a geologist.”

He said this is his first job in private sector after around 30 years in government. – Rappler.com

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