Duterte warns corrupt officials: ‘I’ll skin you alive’

President Rodrigo Duterte. MALACAñANG FILE PHOTO

DAVAO CITY, Philippines–President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday warned of drastic actions against corrupt government employees and officials and urged them to stop their wrongdoings now.

“Stop that. I will really skin you alive,” he said in a news conference held shortly after delivering his arrival speech in connection with his state visit to Vietnam.

Duterte said he did not mind losing friends to maintain his integrity and in fact, lost one or two since he became President.

“I lose a friend; I lost a friend,” he said.

Duterte said he also did not mind implementing a massive purge in government if it was the only way to fulfill his campaign promise of a clean government.

READ: Duterte: Gov’t purge to stop corruption

“I promised the people a clean government, don’t embarrass me,” he said, adding that “I do not want to go into a massive purge of government workers and officials.”

“Please do not tempt me to do it,” Duterte said.

He urged those in government to cooperate with his anti-corruption campaign and to those who were engaged in corruption in the past to already stop their fraudulent and dishonest activities.

“I do not like graft and corruption, especially involving money that’s intended, you know, for the poor, for the farmers,” he said.

Duterte said it was a reality in the past that “down the line,” (commissions) were being shared among those who facilitated the transactions even in such agencies as the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

“I’m warning those in government, many of them from regulatory (bodies), LTFRB…do not commit the mistake,” he said.

Duterte said those who continue to commit mistakes will be shamed, as he did suspected drug lords and traders.

“I will read your name in public. I will ask you to resign,” he said.

READ: Duterte threatens to name scalawags in gov’t

“If you won’t resign, I will whisper (your name) to the addicts and I will say, that was the one who squealed on you,” Duterte said in jest.

But in a serious tone, Duterte warned corrupt government employees and officials not to “force me to place you in a very uncomfortable and awkward (situation).”

“Listen to me now. You can’t avoid me (because) my mandate is for six years. In the fullness of God’s time, if he makes me alive and you are a corrupt….,” he said without finishing his sentence.

Duterte said the days of corruption in government, when “everybody was on the take,” were now over.

“Stop it,” he said.

To businessmen wanting to have contracts with government, including in the defense department, Duterte said they should “not to come to me to make a whisper.”

“I am not a technical man, do not come to me…go to (Defense Secretary Delfin) Lorenzana. Lorenzana would not follow me if I give him a wrong order,” he said.

Duterte also urged the public to help him identify those were corrupt.

He said he would not mind if the complainant would not identify himself.

“Just let me know,” he said.

Duterte lamented that the image of the government abroad is that of a corrupt one but he assured businessmen he had talked with, including those in Vietnam, that the days were over for money-making government officials and employees.

One of the steps his administration has taken to prevent corruption, he said, was the simplification of transactions in government.

He said in the national departments, he made it clear that issuances, approvals, or rejections of documents should only take a month.

At the local level, the processing of documents including clearances, should only take three days at the most, Duterte said./rga