PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte renewed his offer to former Defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro to take over his old portfolio so that he could appoint the current chief, Delfin Lorenzana, as ambassador to the United States.
In a speech before flag officers and newly minted generals at Malacañang, Duterte said he wanted Teodoro to take over the Defense department so that Lorenzana could be the country’s envoy to Washington.
Duterte said he admired Teodoro, and even offered to help him during the last elections if he intended to run for office.
“He was my lawyer long before,” Duterte said of Teodoro. “He was still a young lawyer… I hope he does accept.”
Teodoro was former secretary of the national defense during the Arroyo administration and ran unsuccessfully for president against then Senator Benigno Aquino III.
Shortly after Duterte won the presidency, Teodoro visited him in Davao City but turned down an offer to be his Defense secretary, citing personal reasons.
Lorenzana was formerly the Special Presidential Representative of the Office of Philippine Veterans Affairs in the United States, before accepting Duterte’s offer to head the Defense department.
Lorenzana is a high school classmate of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, a trusted friend of the President in Parang, Cotabato, and was the 601st Brigade Commander in Malungon, Sarangani in 2000.
Duterte however, in a chance interview, expressed that Lorenzana had expressed his wishes to stay in the country after his long service outside the country.
“I know him well but he said that he wants to live a peaceful life here [in the country], he wants to stay. Let’s see,” the President said.
Duterte on Tuesday defended his decision to kick out more than 6,000 presidential appointees as part of his effort to rid the government of corruptions.
“In the Philippines we have a little bit of, I would say, disorder. In a sense that some of the areas of governance are really dysfunctional. What prompted…me to run was the corruption…. And despite my warning, it’s still there,” he said.
Duterte said that even if these people were already in government at his behest after serving the Arroyo and Aquino administrations, he would have to let them go because of rampant corruption.
“I’ve been with government as mayor 22 to 23 years in Davao. When I was a prosecutor… what could not be stopped was corruption. It was an unrelenting fight until the end of my term,” he said.
The Palace said Tuesday that it followed due process in carrying out the President’s order.
Also on Tuesday, Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano denied “malicious rumors” that he was resigning along with three other leftist Cabinet members, Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, National Anti-Poverty Commission chairperson Liza Maza and Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod, over the spate of extrajudicial killings as a result of Duterte’s anti-drug campaing.
In a statement, Taguiwalo also denied she was leaving the Duterte administration.
“I am in a Cabinet meeting now with Secretary Mariano and Maza. Whatever positions we have regarding the burial of Marcos and extrajudicial killings, we will convey directly to the President. We are one with him in hoping for the crafting of a just and lasting peace with the National Democratic Front and Moro National Liberation Front, and in condemning all forms of corruption,” her statement read.
She slammed those behind the manipulation of such information in a bid to derail the ongoing peace talks in Oslo, Norway.
She said they are working with the President to ensure that social services are made accessible to the people.
She condemned those who are manipulating information and surmised these were meant to derail the ongoing peace talks in Oslo.
Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office chairman Erineo Maliksi, an Aquino appointee, has stopped reporting for work for the last two weeks, PCSO general manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II told a House panel Tuesday.
Rojas represented Maliksi before the panel to present the PCSO’s programs and to update the lawmakers on its revenue collections. With Rio N. Araja and Maricel V. Cruz
