Duterte: No more second chances, more dismissals to come

President Rodrigo Duterte speak before the board of trustees, executives, and employees of the GSIS on its 81st anniversary celebration on Tuesday, June 19, 2018, at the gymnasium of the GSIS Financial Center in Pasay. (Photo from an RTVM video)

President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday that there would be no more second chances for corrupt government officials as he revealed that “there would be more dismissals to come.”

“It pains me deeply to do it. Pero sinabi ko na, sinabi ko sa inyo: Huwag. Huwag na huwag. And that promise, I’m doing until today. There will be more dismissals to come,” he said in a speech during the 81st anniversary of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) in Pasay City.

He said he did not care if his term “would be characterized by a firing and dismissal of people from government.”

“Kapag nagkamali ka,I won’t give you a second chance. No fucking second chance,” he said.  “Ayaw ko talaga ‘yan. And give us, give the Filipino a respite of corruption.”

The President has repeatedly said he would fire government officials even with just a “whiff of corruption.”

But contrary to his remarks of giving no second chance to fired government officials, the President reappointed some of those he had already sacked.

Among them was Jose Gabriel “Pompee” La Viña whose term as Social Security System commissioner was terminated by the President but was later named tourism undersecretary and tranferred as agriculture undersecretary.

He also reappointed former Bureau of Customs chief Nicanor Faeldon as deputy administrator III at the Office of Civil Defense after the former military man was embroiled in the P6.4-billion shabu smuggling mess.

The President also put back in government Melissa Aradanas, who was among the five officilas of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) that he had fired.

Aradanas, who is a cousin of  Duterte’s  partner, Cielito “Honeylet” Avanceña, is now a deputy commissioner for the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC). /atm