JUSTICE Secretary Menardo yesterday disclosed that corruption complaints have started to come “in droves” since Task Force Against Corruption was created on orders of President Duterte.
“Marami-rami na. Nagsisimula nang magdatingan. That’s why we are organizing our operations center,” Guevarra said.
President Duterte recently directed the Department of Justice 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,” he said in a taped speech.
“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.
Also, Guevarra said that member-agencies in the task force would not be spared from investigation if a formal complaint is filed against them.
” The member agencies of the task force against corruption are included in the scope of the investigation and will be subjected to the same, if not stricter, standards and procedures as those adopted or to be adopted by the task force for the investigation of other gov’t agencies. We are very much aware that the credibility of the task force hinges to a great extent on the ability of the member agencies to clean their own respective backyards, “ Guevarra said.
Just the other day, Guevarra assured the public that the DOJ has enough lawyers for the additional task of probing corruption in the government.
“So far, we have enough state counsels and state prosecutors to handle all these extra tasks assigned to the DOJ. We’ll add a corps of young lawyers who will get their appointments as prosecution attorneys very soon. If need be, we’ll draw from the legal complement of agencies attached to the DOJ, other than the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI),” Guevarra told reporters.
Meanwhile, Guevarra claimed that the disposition rate of the National Prosecution Service of cases filed before it remained high despite the COVID-19 outbreak now sweeping the nation.
“As to the review panel looking into police operations resulting in deaths in illegal drug cases, I think we can come up with at least an initial or partial report by the end of the month, as targeted,” Guevarra said.
