House OKs on final reading bill seeking to abolish PCGG

Updated (6:14 p.m.)

The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved on third and final reading a bill seeking to abolish the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which is tasked with recovering the ill-gotten wealth of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Voting 162-10 without abstention, the lower chamber approved House Bill No. 7376, which seeks to strengthen the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) – the principal law office of the Philippine government.

Section 6 of the bill also abolishes the PCGG and the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC), transferring those agencies’ functions and powers to the OSG.

Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao assailed the move as an “outright historical revisionism.”

The lawmaker said the move to strengthen the Office of the Solicitor General is only a smokescreen. He emphasized that the creation of the PCGG is “a product of the collective action of the Filipino people to oust a dictator and to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the family of the Marcoses.”

ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said “rightsizing the PCGG and OGCC” is a priority program of the Duterte administration and would result to the mass layoff of government employees.

For her part, ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro underscored the importance of the PCGG.

She said the agency is tasked with “correcting the wrongs committed against the people by the Marcoses and their cronies” and “fulfills the constitutional mandate on transparency and accountability of public officers.”

PCGG is a quasi-judicial agency created by former President Corazon Aquino to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses on February 28, 1986. /atm /ee