‘No stopping drive vs corruption,’ President vows

The firing of civil servants accused of corruption won’t stop — at least, until all of them are out of the government, Malacañang said on Tuesday.

The Palace assured the public that President Rodrigo Duterte would continue to go after corrupt officials even if it meant there was nobody left in the government.

“It will not stop until there’s none left, even if there’s no one left serving in the government, because that is what the President promised,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.

Roque made the remarks a day after the President announced the sacking of Rudolf Philip Jurado, chief of the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, for his “wrong legal opinion.”

Franchises

Jurado was sacked for allegedly overstepping his authority when he allowed the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone to issue franchises in areas outside Aurora province so long as these are controlled by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority.

“May I call the government corporate counsel. Are you here? If you are here, come out, you son of a bitch. You are fired. I do not need you and maybe you don’t need me,” the President said in a speech in Malacañang on Monday.

Jurado was the latest among the President’s men to get the ax, following the relief of Assistant Transportation Secretary Mark Tolentino last week.

Roque said the President’s anticorruption campaign was “very effective” and even gave it a score of nine out of 10.

“But he [the President] believes that despite the many people he has fired because of corruption, there are still many who want to serve our country,” he added.