Duterte says he fired "another set of high officials"
President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday he fired another set of officials due to alleged irregularities.
Duterte did not identify those officials. But his announcement came after Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. was removed as chairman of the National Food Authority Council.
"You know, I'm very sad to inform you that as of last week, I fired another set of high officials," Duterte said in a speech during the mass oathtaking of newly appointed officials in Malacanang.
To his chagrin, Duterte said the officials whom he dismissed from office were "the guys who went back and forth to Davao to convince me to run."
He said these individuals encouraged him to run in the 2016 elections in order "to repair the nation, to rehabilitate everything and to stop corruption."
Duterte lamented that he did not want to lose trust to any of his friends or acquaintances.
"I hate it because I know they meant well. But along the way, there's... irregularity...But you know as supporters, early on, even during my mayorship days, they were already around and yet to f*** around. It's embarrassing," he added.
Evasco, in a statement earlier in the day, which Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque read in a press briefing in Boracay, said in his more than two decades in public service, he was never charged in relation to his work in government.
"I have never been investigated by any office on any misdealings, let alone I have never been charged at the Ombudsman / Sandiganbayan for any corrupt practices," he said.
Evasco added that he could never break the trust given to him by Duterte, especially when he was appointed to the position he is now in.
"I can never break the good relationship I have with the president, a relationship we have built through the years with the people we work and serve with.. I can never put my family in a position of compromise after all the support, sacrifice and love they have given to me as I continue to serve this government and the people," he added.
In the same speech, Duterte said he received another copy of the draft executive order to end contractualization or endo.
He did not say when he will sign the EO on the matter. Celerina Monte/DMS
