A REVAMP looms in the Department of Justice after acting Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra asked undersecretaries and assistant secretaries of his predecessor Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II to submit their courtesy resignation.
In a memo dated April 24, but released to the media only on Monday, Guevarra ordered all undersecretaries and assistant secretaries to submit their “unqualified” resignations before April 30.
Guevarra issued the order “in the exigency of service and in order to give the undersigned a free hand to perform the mandate given to him by the President.”
Until the President acts on the resignations, the DoJ officials “shall continue to report for work and perform their usual duties and responsibilities, subject to any modification that the undersigned may deem proper to adopt in the meantime,” Guevarra said.
All five current DoJ undersecretaries were appointed during the tenure of Aguirre.
Four of them are members of the Lex Talionis, the fraternity of Duterte and Aguirre in San Beda University law school—Antonio Kho Jr., Erickson Balmes, Raymund Mecate and Reynante Orceo are all members of the fraternity; while Deo Marco is a son of another fraternity brother.
The order also covered seven assistant secretaries—Adonis Sulit, Juvy Manwong, George Ortha II, Moslemen Macarambon Sr., Cheryl Daytec-Yañgot, Sergio Yap II and Margaret Padilla. Only Sulit did not submit a resignation because he is a career official who enjoys security of tenure.
Guevarra said all of his deputies have already complied with the order, with some of them even filing courtesy resignations “much earlier.”
When he assumed the post in the DoJ early last month, Guevarra vowed to address what he called as “huge image problem” in the department.
He lamented how the department has been “corroded inside” because of controversies that recently hounded it—including the dismissal of drug charges against confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinoza and the provisional coverage of pork barrel scam queen Janet Lim-Napoles in the witness protection program.