Marcos to gov’t workers: Stay focused amid political noise
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has urged government employees to stay focused on their work, especially in being “disruptors of the old guard” amid the ongoing political noise.
He made the remarks during a flag-raising ceremony at Malacañang grounds on Monday.
READ: Marcos on anti-corruption efforts: Excising cancer needs major surgery
“It is very, very important that we stay focused. I know that there is a great deal of political noise going on. I know that there are… we have actually been very effective disruptors of the old guard, and that is something that we will just have to weather, because what we are doing is correct, what we are doing is right, what we are doing is necessary,” Marcos said in a brief statement.
He also said that now is the right time “to make things right, to make things better, to make the lives of each Filipino better.”
“That is how important our jobs are, and that is why I have… from the depths of my heart, I am grateful to you for the work that you have done, because I know that you have dedicated above and beyond, lahat ng ginagawa ninyo, above and beyond the common duty, as we say in the military,” he added.
In a separate speech early this month, Marcos metaphorically compared the government’s ongoing fight against corruption to a disease that requires major and complex surgery.
“When you have to excise a cancer out of such a complicated system, you need to do some very major surgery. And to do that, and when you do that, you will bleed. And that is what we had to go through. We had to go through that,” he said during the Malacañang year-end fellowship.
He also offered an apology, as people had to “suffer” in the government’s anti-corruption efforts.
He noted, however, that without these measures, the Philippines would simply end up shrugging off the anomalies.
“We have to go all through that pain, go through the difficulty, go through the anguish the country is going through now. But we are Filipinos. We may be bleeding now, but we will also heal very, very quickly,” he said. /gsg
