Duterte to set up 12 hotline nos. to report corrupt officials

CEBU CITY—President-elect Rodrigo Duterte plans to set up 12 hotline numbers where people can directly report to him the corrupt practices of government employees and officials.

Government employees can squeal on their bosses’ involvement in corruption.

During a 42-minute speech at the thanksgiving celebration on the Sugbo Grounds at the South Road Properties here, Duterte said the 12 phone numbers can be used to access him 24 hours a day and will be manned by persons who will take note of their calls and complaints.

He also warned people in the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to stop their corrupt practices.

“You better stop it or I will humiliate you,” he told a crowd of close to 10,000.

Duterte stressed he was not “salbahi (mean).”

But he added he would be forced to be mean if people would not listen to him.

Duterte said this would also be reflected on his drive against criminality and drugs.

He reminded the bishops that not everything could be solved by praying.

Duterte arrived at the SRP Sugbo Grounds at past 10 p.m. after attending a wedding at Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa in Lapu-Lapu City.

He didn’t immediately go up the stage.

It was already past 11 p.m. when he went up, wearing a dark blue polo shirt, and thanked Cebuanos at the thanksgiving celebration for giving him a “makabungog (resounding)” win.

He left the stage at 11:45 p.m. and boarded his vehicle parked at the back of the stage.

Their convoy left at almost midnight.

Sources said he went back to Davao City at 12: 44 a.m., using the same private plane that brought him here.

Under his administration, Duterte said he wants the long lines at the BIR, the Land Transportation Office (LTO), and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to stop.

He said that applicants for licenses or passports should be advised to return to a specific date so they didn’t have to wait in line.

The same thing should happen when asking for police clearances or processing death benefits and pensions of widows of policemen and soldiers.

He said the widows should not be made to go to the office in Manila to process these.

Instead, the main office in Manila should be the one to process these clearances or death benefits and pensions and send them to the regional office where a personnel is assigned so the widows would no longer have to travel that far.

“These are the small things that I want to correct,” he said.

Duterte said the country’s hope depends on investments in order to generate jobs for Filipinos.

But before investments could come, he said he must make the country peaceful by controlling the source of criminality which is drugs. TVJ/rga

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