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Friday, March 29, 2024

Govt justifies ‘streamlining’

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MALACAÑANG on Thursday denied nitpicking on some government agencies after President Rodrigo Duterte and some members of his Cabinet considered abolishing the Commission on Human Rights and the Presidential Commission on Good Government. 

Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella tried to justify the administration’s plan on the two agencies in a news briefing. 

“Let me stress, it’s not a political question; it’s a question of streamlining and being able to consolidate functions so that there will be no overlap,” Abella said of the PCGG, which is tasked to go after the ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his cronies. 

“Regarding the CHR, it is basically the President simply expressing his frustration regarding the apparent biases of the commission.” 

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the administration planned to abolish the PCGG, the agency tasked with recovering more than $10 billion in public funds looted by the Marcoses, who were toppled by the bloodless People Power Revolution in 1986. 

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But the agency is still working to find more, including 200 pieces of art by the masters like Michelangelo and Picasso that were alleged to have been purchased by the Marcos family.

“They don’t do anything. What do they do?” Diokno said. 

Diokno expressed confidence the rightsizing bill that would abolish agencies with overlapping functions would pass as the leaders of Congress allied with Duterte had declared their support for it.

NO MORE PCGG? This file photo taken on Nov. 27, 2015 shows an official from the Presidential Commission on Good Government  showing a piece of jewelry seized by the Philippine government from former first lady Imelda Marcos  at the Central Bank headquarters in Manila. President Rodrigo Duterte’s government plans to abolish the agency tasked with recovering the billions of dollars plundered by Marcos and his allies, a Cabinet member said on July 26, 2017. AFP (Related story on A2)

He asked why the PCGG was still around after 30 years and said it should have been “an ad hoc agency.”

“They [the PCGG staff] enjoy things because they have so many perks,” he said.

Responding to Diokno’s claims, the PCGG questioned the administration’s motives in questioning its “performance, relevance and efficiency.” 

“Aside from the fact that it was awarded as the best DOJ performing agency for three [3] straight years, what other government agency can effectively raise non-tax revenues similar to the numbers below?” the PCGG said in a statement.

“Why is there a question on its budget and relevance when PCGG’s cost to recovery ratio is exemplary as shown by these numbers? Of all agencies? Figures do not lie.”

In 2014, the PCGG was able to recover P1.57 billion followed by P14.01 billion in 2015 and P481.95 million in 2016″•despite its small budget of around P100 million a year. 

In reply, the Palace said the Office of the Solicitor General could do the PCGG’s functions. 

As for the CHR, whom President Duterte himself threatened to abolish for allegedly interfering with his bloody drug war, Abella said the President was simply “stating his frustration” at the agency. 

The CHR is tasked to investigate human rights violations perpetrated by state actors or the government itself. 

But Abella insinuated that while the Palace might not abolish the agency, it would be possible for the President to fire Commissioner Jose Luis Martin Gascon, who had openly criticized his actions in the past. 

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