A PETITIONER-lawyer has challenged Interior department officer-in-charge Catalino Cuy to resign for going against a directive of President Rodrigo Duterte on an allegedly anomalous and overpriced fire truck deal with an Austrian firm.
This is the same questionable supply contract that cost the job of his predecessor, former Interior secretary Ismael Sueno.
Leo Romero, counsel in an earlier petition before the Supreme Court questioning the supply contract with Rosenbauer International AG, accused Cuy of countermanding the President’s position in announcing the supply agreement was a “perfected government-to-government contract.”
Romero also slammed Cuy for denying their repeated requests for copies of documents surrounding the supply contract for the Rosenbauer TLF 4000 fire trucks.
“With these ignoble and unpardonable actions…the most honorable thing to do at this point is to resign from your office. That is, if the word honorable means anything to you at this point in your life,” he said in his letter to the DILG official.
Copies of the letter were also furnished to the President and Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea.
“After you have resigned, you can now shout to your heart’s content that President Duterte is unworthy of the trust and confidence reposed by the Filipino people…You have countermanded, contradicted, and disrespectfully placed in the back burner the covenant of President Duterte to the Filipino people,” he said.
“You have made a mockery of the oft-repeated pronouncements of President Duterte that graft and corruption in government must stop,” Romero added.
Romero noted that Sueno, sacked by the President over allegations of corruption, including pushing for the Rosenbauer contract to proceed despite a pending case before the Supreme Court, also used “perfected contract” and “government-to-government contract” to justify his actions.
“It so appears that you (Cuy) share the same naughty mindset of former Secretary Sueno as to the ulterior motives behind his failure and refusal to comply with our legal demands for the necessary papers and documents. You may be reeking of the similar ‘first whiff’ of corruption pointed out by President Duterte,” Romero said.
Romero also vowed to file graft charges against culpable officials of the DILG and the Bureau of Fire Protection, including against Interior Assistant Secretary for Plans and Programs Epimaco Densing III, for their “brazen attempts” to push through with the Rosenbauer deal.
“These culpable officials will also face administrative cases for countermanding the direct orders of the President,” Romero said.