PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte yesterday directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate corruption in the entire government.
“I hope that all government workers, officials are listening. This is a memorandum from me to Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra. The subject is investigating corruption allegations in the entire government,” Duterte said in a taped speech aired Tuesday.
“I will concentrate the last remaining years of my term fighting corruption kasi hanggang ngayon, hindi humihina, lumalakas pa lalo. Para na tuloy naging inutil ang mga opisyal ng bayan, na wala talagang magawa with the onslaught of corruption,” the President vowed.
For his part, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra accepted the task given by the President, saying the new assignment probably was the toughest yet from Malacañang.
“Apart from my usual responsibilities as SOJ (Secretary of Justice), this new assignment is the toughest I have ever received from the President. I will need all the support and cooperation of the entire government machinery to achieve this singular objective of substantially reducing corruption in government,” Guevarra said.
Guevarra disclosed that he was mulling over the creation of several task forces to go after corruption in graft-ridden government agencies.
“ I am thinking of creating several strike forces that will simultaneously attack various corruption-prone agencies. But as I have said, the first order of the day is to organize the main task force and determine the overall strategy,” Guevarra said.
“Considering the breadth of this anti-corruption campaign, I will immediately focus on the organizational set-up and mechanism that will carry out the President’s directive till the end of his term, as well as the order of priorities,” he continued.
Guevarra called on the public to come out and provide information that could help the DOJ go after erring government officials and employees.
“It will help us a lot if government workers themselves and the people they deal with would come forward and provide us the necessary information to uncover corrupt activities and identify the perpetrators thereof. The new and expanded anti-corruption task force will take it from there, ” he said.
