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Duterte warns heads roll in anti-corruption campaign
More government officials involved in corruption will be removed and prosecuted before the end of the year, warned President Rodrigo Duterte, reiterating his determination to clean up the bureaucracy.
In a briefing on the government’s response to the typhoon, Duterte tagged several officials from Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), the Bureau of Immigration (BI), and the Customs Office (BoC) as corruption in government.
“The next round will be in December. Many will lose their jobs, many will be separated from the government, many will be prosecuted and many will go to jail, “Duterte said.
The president read the names of several suspended government officials and said he has a duty to inform the public about anti-corruption efforts.
Among the names he mentioned were PhilHealth executives Arnel de Jesus, Renato
Limsiaco Jr., Shirley Domingo, and Dr. Roger Tong-An from the Department of Health (DoH).
Duterte reported that around 44 BI employees who were allegedly involved in the “pill scheme” were suspended by the Ombudsman’s Office.
“These pills, there are many. It will take about 70. You haven’t arrived yet, Art (Tugade). You’re not there yet, Mark (Villar), they are already there, they’ve been there for a long time (On the pickup scheme, it’ll hit 70. You weren’t there yet, Art and Mark. They were already there. They’ve been there for a while. a long time), ”Duterte said.
“In Immigration there are officials, they are allowed 10 or 20 hours with nothing, but of course they are going to ask for money. That’s the scandal there. Even their officials there (in the Immigration office, the officials allow 10 or 20 to enter without documents but they will ask for money. That is the scandal) ”, he added.
At the BoC, the president said that 135 staff members were under investigation, 45 were indicted in administrative cases, 20 were fired and four were suspended.
Duterte said he was “dissatisfied” with the BoC’s action, insisting that both criminal and administrative complaints should be filed against the misguided public servants.
The Ombudsman’s Office pre-emptively suspended several government employees after the president called for a government-wide corruption investigation.
Last week, 44 immigration staff members received a six-month pre-trial suspension order after being linked to the “lozenge” bribery scheme, which generated as much as 40 billion pesos in bribes, according to an estimate by a lawmaker.
The same order was imposed on five members of the Department of Health staff due to alleged failures and anomalies in the response to the coronavirus, as well as eight PhilHealth officers who were allegedly involved in anomalous cash advances worth more than P2.7 billion.
In August, the president ordered the creation of a task force to investigate the alleged anomalies at PhilHealth.
It later expanded the scope of the task force to investigate all government agencies harassed by allegations of corruption.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra previously said that the Justice Department-led task force identified other priority government agencies in its corruption investigation, including the BoC, the Office of Internal Revenue, the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Land Registry Authority.
The working group is made up of officials from the Ombudsman’s Office, the Audit Commission, the Civil Service Commission, the Office of the Executive Secretary, the Office of the President, and the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission.
Duterte gave the task force until June 30, 2022 to root out corruption in government.
The president reiterated that he wanted to fight corruption for the remainder of his term.
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