“The President wants to keep Duque by his side.”
“The President wants to keep Duque by his side.”
One must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Fine.
It should fairly apply to Department of Health secretary Francisco Duque III, who may yet come through another congressional probe unscathed over corruption allegations at his offices.
Duque maintains he serves at the pleasure of President Duterte who continues to trust and have full confidence in him, as he also heads the presidential Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Malacañang said Duque is entitled to his day in court, the proper forum for him and his staff to answer any formal charges of graft and corruption. Certainly, not trial by publicity.
A Palace source told me they have gathered that the Commission on Audit (COA) reports on “numerous deficiencies” in the use of a P67.3-billion pandemic response fund by the DOH are being trumpeted by oppositionists to undermine the government response to the Covid pandemic crisis.
“The whole thing has been blown out of proportion by the premature disclosure by COA when it is just a matter of compliance on documentation on the part of the DOH,” said my source.
“Now, all this brouhaha at the Senate is now being used by politicians as an issue to draw public attention to themselves, as 2022 elections come near. They should keep politics out of this,” he said, apparently referring to some senators aspiring for re-election or for higher elective office.
Irritated by calls for Duque’s resignation or sacking, President Duterte told the DOH chief to “ignore” COA’s pronouncements.
Malacañang maintained that COA should not release its reports to the media without giving DOH or other agencies enough time to comply with its requirements.
COA’s reports and the recurrent clamor for Duque’s ouster came amid worsening COVID-19 crisis, particularly in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces, which may be placed under continued lockdown.
Meanwhile, 14,895 new cases were reported Thursday, August 19, racking up a total of 1.79 million cases nationwide, according to the DOH.
Clearly, the LGUs must step up the vaccination program toward the goal of attaining herd immunity.
In the wake of the DOH controversy, COA chairman Michael Aguinaldo stood firm that the agency will continue to fulfill its constitutional mandate to foster transparency in government transactions.
However, my Palace source has this to say: “In the middle of all this is the elephant in the room that nothing is being said about, which is the fact that some personalities inside COA had been implanted to serve the interests of some bigshots in the previous administration.”
Aguinaldo was appointed by former President Noynoy Aquino in March 2015.
COA is an independent constitutional commission which is mandated by law to examine, audit and settle all accounts and expenditures of the funds and properties of the Philippine government.
In its audit reports on DOH for fiscal year 2020, COA also disclosed that P11.8 billion of this amount was untapped, that more than P95 million in “expired and nearly expired” medicines and supplies were wasted, and that the DOH failed to use P59.124 billion of its P200.9-billion budget in 2020.
There is also the botched procurement of at least four units of luxurious laptops costing P700,000 each to be used by top DOH officials.
But the President wants to keep Duque by his side pending any investigation or charges.
If lack of a sense of delicadeza keeps Duque from submitting “irrevocable resignation” and clinging to his post like tartier on a tree, so be it.