Presidential candidate Panfilo Lacson on Sunday reiterated his plan to apply the same methods he used when he was chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to separate good public officials from the rotten ones.
The move, he said, will radically purge the culture of corruption in the bureaucracy under his administration.
To achieve this, Lacson said he would impress upon his future subordinates the same “leadership by example” principle that he had been holding on to since he started his public service career from his days as a soldier, policeman and throughout his three terms as senator.
“It’s not enough that a leader is not corrupt. There should be more (that needs to be done). It is necessary that his personnel and associates in government are not corrupt as well,” he said.
Asked to explain how he would enforce discipline among public officials and separate the good ones from the bad ones, Lacson referred to his policy of planting undercover agents across various government agencies, which was the same thing he did when he was PNP chief.
“As much as possible, we’ll get them or catch them in flagrante delicto, ano, on-the-spot. “
In way, he said we would have no problem with respect to presentation of evidence.
“And we know how to deal with it because I’ve already done it in the PNP.”
Lacson’s methods were proven effective at the time because he was able to significantly reduce the number of so-called ‘kotong’ (bribe-seeking) cops off the streets, thus restoring public trust in the oft-maligned police organization.
“I would like to believe, and I’m confident, [that] this was really felt by our motorists, business owners), traders, and commuters,” Lacson said.
Under his presidency, Lacson said he wants whatever anti-corruption policies he would be able to implement within his legal authority to be sustained. He and his vice-presidential running mate Senate President Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto III are already preparing some measures to achieve this goal.
“We really need it sustained; we cannot start it only as a temporary measure. We cannot pay only lip service to such a policy. We have to implement it. So, we have laid down some programs regarding this, the proposed policies we plan to execute,” he related.
Included among these anti-corruption mechanisms that Lacson kept talking about is his plan to conduct internal cleansing among members of the bureaucracy in the executive branch during his First 100 days in office, as well as his waiver of rights and privileges under the Bank Secrecy Act.