President Digong has dismissed Interior Secretary Mike Sueno for allegedly being corrupt.
Sueno was also probably the most incompetent chief of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
A provincial politician, he was like a headless chicken at the DILG; he didn’t know what to make of his very powerful office.
Sueno once came up with a harebrained idea of creating a military police (MP) force within the Philippine National Police.
Asked about the mechanics of the police MP, Sueno couldn’t give an intelligent answer.
I visited Sueno at his office when he was new at his job and, in behalf of the “Isumbong Mo Kay Tulfo” program, asked that he expedite administrative cases filed against policemen in the National Police Commission (Napolcom).
The DILG secretary is ex officio chair of the Napolcom.
He promised to act on my request but he never kept his promise.
Sueno probably was too scared of offending his subordinate, Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the PNP chief.
The President should also fire Interior Undersecretaries John Castriciones, Jayvee Hinlo and Emily Padilla.
Sueno and his three undersecretaries were together in PDP-Laban, the party which then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte used in filing his certificate of candidacy in the presidential race.
The scuttlebutt in the DILG is that they exposed the purchase of firetrucks from Austria without public bidding because Sueno excluded them from the deal.
In short, it was clearly sour grapes.
One of those being bruited about to replace Sueno is another PDP-Laban party mate, Director General Gene Mamondiong of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda).
Tesda was the vehicle of Joel Villanueva, Mamondiong’s predecessor, to his Senate victory.
President Digong should think twice if he plans to appoint Mamondiong to the DILG.
Mamondiong has reportedly made the Tesda compound his residence.
Sources say Mamondiong receives visitors at his Tesda “home” and that they have dirtied up the compound by spitting everywhere.
In behalf of the citizenry, may I suggest that Mano Digong appoint Raffy Alunan as the next DILG chief.
Alunan, who ran for senator under Duterte’s ticket, was the most honest and competent Interior secretary during the Ramos administration.
Since there is a one-year ban on the appointment of defeated candidates, the President may want to appoint an officer in charge until Alunan can take over after the ban expires next month.
Lowering the age for criminal liability from the current 15 years to nine years will be a deterrent to serious crimes among juvenile delinquents.
Persons who haven’t reached 15 years of age are getting away with robbery, rape and murder—no pun intended—because a law authored by Sen. Francis Pangilinan frees them of any criminal liability.
So many young thieves, rapists and murderers are roaming around free, thanks to that stupid Pangilinan law.