Philippine president says he will snub corruption investigation
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte said he would not co-operate with a special anticorruption prosecutor’s investigation into allegations that he acquired ill-gotten wealth, vowing he would not submit to its authority.
The ombudsman said last week it was investigating claims that Mr Duterte’s bank accounts contained hundreds of millions of dollars, which he failed to disclose as required by law.
Mr Duterte responded by lashing out at the ombudsman, calling the agency “lousy” and saying allegations against him were “lies based on baseless” information. “I will not submit to the jurisdiction [of the ombudsman],” Mr Duterte said in a curse-laden speech to lawyers on Saturday night.
“Waving fabricated evidence, lying to his teeth in front of the nation and then you want me to submit to the jurisdiction of the ombudsman,” Mr Duterte said, referring to deputy ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang, who had announced the investigation.
Mr Duterte also threatened to investigate ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales and her office for supposedly engaging in corrupt practices. The office of the ombudsman, in turn, said it would not be intimidated by Mr Duterte and would continue with its investigation.
Mr Duterte said he was willing to resign if Ms Morales and supreme court chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno stepped down. Both are appointees of former president Benigno Aquino, whose allies Mr Duterte has blamed for trying to erode his leadership.
Mr Duterte’s remarks contradicted his spokesman’s statement last week that the president respected the ombudsman and trusted its impartiality.
Mr Duterte, 72, won last year’s presidential elections on a brutal law-and-order and anti-corruption platform.
During the election campaign, Mr Duterte had said he came from a poor family and lived a modest life, which boosted his image as an anti-establishment politician representing the common people, analysts said.
The ombudsman investigaThe
tion stemmed from a plunder complaint filed before the elections by opposition senator Antonio Trillanes, who alleged Mr Duterte embezzled government funds during his more than two-decade stint as mayor of the southern city of Davao.
On Saturday, Mr Duterte said his family had properties and businesses, including an ice plant and lumberyard, and said that his late father was a provincial governor.
“All in all it would not go beyond 40 million [pesos or $785,000], my lifetime savings. A part of that was my hereditary – you people from Davao know this – property,” he said.
“I hate to say it [but] what do you think of us, poor? That we are that poor?”
As president Mr Duterte has launched tirades against the supreme court chief justice, the commission on human rights, the Roman Catholic Church and critical media outlets.