Manila: President Benigno Aquino encouraged the filing of charges against his allies suspected of corruption, as a consumer group filed a complaint to the Ombudsman against Philippine National Police Director-General Alan Purisima.
“The cards are open. If they [people] think that I have dishonest people around me, then all they have to do is file an appropriate case. The ombudsman investigates instances where complaints are unsigned or anonymous precisely to ferret out those who are not treading the correct path,” said Aquino at the Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics at Harvard University.
Aquino made the remarks after the Coalition of Filipino Consumers (CFC) asked the Office of the Ombudsman to charge police chief Purisima with indirect bribery, graft, plunder, and for not filing a proper statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN).
Purisima allegedly accepted donations from members of the Philippine Masonry for the renovation of his official residence, which is called “White House” in the compound of the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Camp Crame in suburban Quezon City, CFC secretary-general Perfecto Jaime Tagalog told Gulf News.
“This could be tantamount to plunder and indirect bribery from members of the organisation that he belongs to,” explained Tagalog.
Purisima allegedly undervalued his property in San Leonardo town, Nueva Ecija, in northern Luzon, at P3.75 million (Dh308,333), as declared in his SALN, complained Tagalog, adding, “Since the renovation of the house reportedly cost between P25-30 million (Dh2.08 to 2.5 million) the police chief allegedly violated the guidelines in the filing of government officials’ SALN.”
Purisima has also refused to release his SALN to CFC, Tagalog said.
At the same time, Senator Grace Poe, an Aquino ally and chair of the Senate committee on public order, asked Purisima to submit his SALN during a hearing on the modernisation of the PNP on September 30.
When Aquino campaigned for the presidency in 2010, he promised to eradicate corruption in government.
The PNP was criticised for the involvement of policemen in the robbery and abduction of two employees of a company with contracts with the police at a major thoroughfare on September 1. Senior Inspector Oliver Villanueva, the alleged mastermind of the abduction (allegedly for ransom) was subjected to lifestyle check.
