MANILA, Philippines —Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra stood by Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno amid calls from lawmakers for President Rodrigo Duterte to reconsider his appointment over issues hounding the proposed 2019 national budget.
In a statement on Friday, Guevarra said that even though he does not have “extensive knowledge on budget formulation and resource allocation, much less about so-called budget ‘insertions’,” from his own direct personal encounters with Diokno over the years, he can tell that the embattled Budget chief “is a man of extreme professional competence and utmost dedication to duty.”
Guevarra issued the statement after the House of Representatives adopted a resolution urging Duterte to reconsider Diokno’s appointment.
READ: House adopts resolution urging Duterte to fire Diokno
This came after Diokno was grilled in Congress in relation to the alleged irregularities in the proposed P3.757 trillion budget next year.
The Justice chief claimed that as an alter ego of the President, “Diokno, or any Cabinet Secretary, for that matter, deserves to be treated with a modicum of respect, courtesy, and civility by a co-equal branch of government.”
Guevarra also urged everyone involved in the issue “to know all the facts and seek the truth before passing judgment on anyone.”
“Until then, my belief in the competence and integrity of Secretary Diokno remains unshattered,” he added.
Diokno has maintained that there was nothing anomalous with the budget augmentation and that any changes in a department’s budget proposal was part of the budget formulation process. /muf