Finance Sec. Carlos Dominguez III. INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON
“Pure fiction.”
This was how the head of the Duterte administration’s economic team described a report that came out last Friday about an alleged ouster plot against House Speaker Gloria Arroyo led by economic managers.
“Pure fiction and a product of the fevered mind of a coward who refuses to stand by what he or she says,” Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III replied in a Viber message to finance reporters Friday night when asked to comment.
Manila Standard’s report titled “Economic team against GMA” claimed that the economic managers, including Dominguez and Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno, “conspired with some solons to oust Arroyo shortly after she assumed the speakership in July.”
The report quoted a senior administration lawmaker, who remained anonymous.
On Saturday, Manila Standard reported that Arroyo, Diokno and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia denied the report.
Last October, an anti-corruption group called for Dominguez to resign as finance chief as he was supposedly unable to curb corruption in the country’s two biggest tax-collection agencies—the bureaus of Customs and of Internal Revenue.
Sources claimed the camp of Arroyo was behind these resignation calls, as she was eyeing the Finance Secretary post./lb