It won’t last forever

We may never know if Vitaliano Aguirre II offered to resign verbally or through a letter. In fact, the way this issue was handled, some quarters suspect that Aguirre found out he had resigned only after President Duterte announced that he had accepted the quit offer.

No one bothered to finesse Aguirre’s exit with a coordinated script. A day before he was dropped like a hot potato, he said our paper’s banner story about his impending ouster was fake news. His replacement Menardo Guevarra, meanwhile, told the press on the same day that he was unaware of any looming Cabinet changes and that Duterte was “generally satisfied” with Aguirre’s performance, “except for certain debacles.”

The “debacle” that sealed Aguirre’s doom, according to the Palace buzz over the weekend, allegedly involved at least 50 million reasons, blabbed by at least two men to Duterte.

* * * Bidding the Department of Justice goodbye on Friday, Aguirre said he was grateful for the trust and confidence of his frat brod and law school classmate, and that he took pride in making the office that he served for nearly two years “a better DOJ.”

Guevarra, on the other hand, told the media that his marching order from Duterte was to “do what is right.” Another is to “restore the dignity” of the DOJ. Clearly, Duterte and Aguirre weren’t seeing the DOJ in the same way.

Duterte, of course, does not need to explain why he wants to dump any member of his official family. Cabinet members, who are alter egos of the president, serve at the pleasure of the appointing power.

Aguirre suffers from Duterte’s public pronouncements that more officials would be sacked for corruption after the Holy Week break. The former justice chief was not given a chance to claim that he was quitting in preparation for a Senate bid next year.

In truth Duterte had been telling even passing acquaintances for some time that he was about to sack his first justice secretary. Asked about Aguirre’s plan to seek a Senate seat, the President reportedly said the former DOJ chief could try… so he could lose.

There is no graceful exit for Aguirre. While he’s not the first of the original Duterte supporters to fall from grace, he’s the most prominent. And you know what they say: the higher they go, the harder they fall.

Next on the chopping block, I was told, is a Cabinet undersecretary with a penchant for asking financial considerations in exchange for certain services in his department.

* * * People appreciate Duterte’s readiness to dump his friends from college days and fraternity brothers. He should drop a few more, along with those whose appointments are clearly nothing more than political payback, with qualifications for the job a mere afterthought. These appointees inflict misery on the people.

One official has gained notoriety for asking “gifts” worth six figures from the private sector, and staying regularly for free with family and gofers in a high-end resort in Mindanao.

Another is said to be raking it in from business compliance declarations issued by his office. This guy was implicated in a high-profile corruption scandal some years ago, so his appointment punched holes in the avowed anti-corruption stance of the Duterte administration.

With his second year in office drawing to a close, Duterte can afford to tell his friends who do not deserve their positions that they’ve had sufficient time to collect their return on investment for supporting him. Now it’s time not only to pay back the millions who voted for him but also to become the president of all Filipinos.

He’s started Guevarra on the right track. If the new justice chief can “do what is right” and help improve the administration of justice, it will be nothing short of revolutionary.

For a long time, members of the prosecution service have been derided as “fix-cals.” Maybe it’s one of the reasons for the name change, from fiscal to prosecutor.

The DOJ also has jurisdiction over the scandalprone Bureau of Immigration and Bureau of Corrections. Incoming BuCor director Ronald dela Rosa is expected to deal harshly with the drug menace in the New Bilibid Prison, but there’s more to running the corrections system than just neutralizing notorious drug traffickers.

* * * Aguirre’s departure should serve as a cautionary tale for members of the current ruling class: you won’t be in power forever, and like Aguirre, you might be out sooner than you think.

Those engaged in crooked activities should bear in mind that technology has made it easier to record evidence of wrongdoing. There are paper and digital trails.

There’s a group of lawyers currently gathering evidence in suspected cases of extrajudicial killings. Even if the International Criminal Court fails to gain jurisdiction over Duterte since our justice system, although rotten, is still functioning, cases can be filed locally and may prosper even before there is a change of administration.

So there’s a good chance that human rights violators will be held accountable. And the violators will no longer have their patrons to protect them.

With the hubris common among those in power, Aguirre’s fall provides a timely reminder: everything comes to an end.