MANILA – Another government official has lost his trust and confidence and thus will get kicked out from their post, President Rodrigo Duterte had said.
“I’ll be firing about one undersecretary, one after the other. Ubusin ko talaga iyan,” Duterte said during a dinner with Cabinet officials at Sofitel last Thursday.
The President made the statement the same day he accepted the resignation of Vitaliano Aguirre II as Justice secretary.
Menardo Guevarra, the senior deputy executive secretary, replaced Aguirre.
Duterte noted that his Cabinet members were the first to get the boot, as opposed to officials appointed by his predecessors, which would have been the more usual case.
“And to think, in fairness also to President [Benigno] Aquino [III] and to President [Gloria Macapagal] Arroyo … even the Cabinet member, the first to go, mga tao ko,” he said.
Duterte first spoke about wanting a Cabinet revamp after expressing disappointment over the decision of the Justice department to dismiss drug charges against self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa and other who admitted involvement in the drug trade.
Earlier Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque quoted Duterte as saying that Aguirre will replace them in jail if Lim and Espinosa get away with their alleged crimes.
Asked why Aguirre resigned, Roque said he did not see the resignation letter but noted that Duterte said it was “just a matter of accepting a resignation tendered to him.”
The President has mentioned several times that he would not think twice about firing officials involved in corruption. (PNA)
