{"id":206419,"date":"2019-03-13T00:00:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T04:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=206419"},"modified":"2019-03-13T00:00:41","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T04:00:41","slug":"balutan-happy-with-clarification-on-resignation-panelo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/03\/13\/balutan-happy-with-clarification-on-resignation-panelo\/","title":{"rendered":"Balutan ‘happy’ with clarification on resignation: Panelo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Panelo said Balutan decided to resign “out of delicadeza” amid “serious” allegations hurled against him. (File Photo<\/a>: Office of the Presidential Spokesperson\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Resigned Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) general manager, Alexander Balutan, is happy with the issued clarification that he indeed stepped down from his post, Malaca\u00f1ang said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“I think Gen. Balutan is happy that we made a clarification,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Panelo said Balutan decided to resign “out of delicadeza” amid “serious” allegations hurled against him.<\/p>\n

“He (Balutan) said he really wants an investigation and I told him I will write a memo to the President and request the President to grant your request for an investigation,” he said.<\/p>\n

Panelo said the allegations against Balutan include the House of Representatives’ investigation, which showed Commission on Audit (COA) findings on certain Small-Town Lottery areas failing to meet their quotas but whose licenses were renewed, and cash allegedly brought to the PCSO office.<\/p>\n

He said Balutan denied these allegations, noting that renewal of license to operate is a board decision and that the alleged cash was not brought to his office.<\/p>\n

“Basta ang sinasabi niya<\/em>\u00a0(Balutan said), \u2018But the floor that the money was brought to was not my office. That\u2019s the floor of other directors, not me,\u2019” Panelo said.<\/p>\n

He maintained President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s stance that he will not tolerate even “a whiff of corruption” in his administration.<\/p>\n

Panelo clarified on Monday that Balutan has resigned, apparently retracting his earlier statement on Friday that the former PCSO chief was fired over corruption allegations.<\/p>\n

He, however, explained that the Office of the President received Balutan\u2019s resignation letter only after it announced his sacking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Resigned Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) general manager, Alexander Balutan, is happy with the issued clarification that he indeed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":188943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206419","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=206419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}