PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s unrelenting anti-corruption crackdown will now turn its heads from political appointees to local chief executives, in an apparent bid to cleanse the government of scalawags, the Palace said Tuesday.
In a Palace news briefing, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque warned the so-called “cleansing” up the ranks would now include all those occupying important government positions.
“The President stated [during the Cabinet meeting] that he will continue with the process of cleansing the bureaucracy and that he will now turn more of his attention to local government units, including the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao,” Roque said.
“The President mentioned in the Cabinet meeting his resolve also to clean up the ranks of the local government executives to highlight that it’s not just presidential appointees that would be subject to this campaign to promote public accountability but includes (sic) everyone in government,” he added.
Duterte, despite his “firm resolve against corruption” has yet to constitute members for his Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission, created by Executive Order 43 last October 2017.
Asked why it has taken long for the President to act on appointing members of his new anti- corruption watchdog, Roque simply said the President “has not waited for its constitution before he has started actually the purging of corrupt officials in government.”
“As you know, even without the commission, he has gone ahead and fired many of his presidential appointees,” Roque said.
“He has shown that with or without it, he has a firm resolve against corruption and he will implement it,” he added.
Duterte created the agency last year at the height of his continued tirades against Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and her deputies, whom he threatened to investigate for allegedly abusing their powers and committed corruption.
He has so far not made good his threats against the Ombudsman.
Duterte, who has repeatedly said a “whiff of corruption” is enough basis for him to fire a government official, was recently on a firing spree with Maritime Industry Authority administrator Marcial Amaro III on the chopping block for taking excessive foreign trips.
Prior to this, Duterte also dismissed former Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor chairman Terry Ridon over “unnecessary trips.”
He traveled seven times abroad before he was sacked.
Duterte had also fired from their posts former Interior secretary Ismael Sueno and National Irrigation Administration chief Peter Laviña.