{"id":179327,"date":"2018-08-30T22:21:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T02:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=179327"},"modified":"2018-08-30T22:21:28","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T02:21:28","slug":"corruption-preventing-phs-economic-progress-duterte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/30\/corruption-preventing-phs-economic-progress-duterte\/","title":{"rendered":"Corruption preventing PH\u2019s economic progress: Duterte"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: PRRD AT LNMB. President Rodrigo R. Duterte delivers his speech during the commemoration of the National Heroes’ Day at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City on Monday (August 27, 2018). (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Thursday lamented how the Philippines would take longer to reach the economic progress achieved by its neighboring countries due to massive corruption within government.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we cannot stop graft and corruption and cannot maintain law and order in this country, Philippines should never reach the level of economic progress enjoyed by Malaysia and Indonesia on the present level,\u201d Duterte said in his speech during the 49th Charter Day celebration at Mandaue City, Cebu.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would take us about 10 years or 15 years to catch up, maybe more than.\u00a0‘Yan ang problema sa Pilipino<\/em>\u00a0(That\u2019s the problem with Filipinos). But do not also try to crucify the country. I don’t like it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Duterte made this remark after criticizing sacked officials of government-owned and controlled corporation (GOCC) Nayong Pilipino Foundation (NPF) and high-ranking officials and employees of the Armed Forces of the Philippines\u2019 Health Service Command (AFP-HSC) anew over alleged corruption.<\/p>\n

On August 7, the President fired the entire board of NPF for leasing its property for a USD1.5-billion casino resort in Para\u00f1aque City despite his moratorium on casinos.<\/p>\n

Duterte was not only against the construction of new casinos, he also believed that the contract was flawed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou grant a franchise for 75 years? You must be crazy,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so pissed off that I was trying to fix Nayong Pilipino’s anomaly. And here comes a report that afternoon,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

A week later, Duterte fired at least 20 high-ranking officials and employees of the AFP-HSC over alleged corruption at the V. Luna Medical Center in Quezon City involving the anomalous purchases of equipment and fraudulent transaction, such as ghost purchases, splitting of contracts to circumvent the mandatory bidding processes, and conceiving fictitious suppliers.<\/p>\n

Duterte found it difficult to comprehend how military officials would be bold enough to be involved in corrupt practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot understand how an officer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines would have the gall to order medicines that are not delivered but are paid for,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

The President has repeatedly said that he will not think twice about firing government officials, including his friends, involved in even a \u201cwhiff of corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Thursday lamented how the Philippines would take longer to reach the economic progress achieved …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":179328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}