By Jeffrey Damicog Axed government corporate counsel Rudolf Philip Jurado said he respects the decision of President Duterte to remove him from his post. “I accept and respect our President's decision,” Jurado said in a statement. Rudolf Philip Jurado
(OGCC / MANILA BULLETIN) “As an appointee who serves under his pleasure, I am honored to have been given a chance to serve under his administration,” he added. Yesterday, Duterte announced the firing of Jurado over allegations of allowing the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone (APECO) franchises outside Aurora province. The issue stemmed from the legal opinion issued by the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC) which states that the APECO can have franchises outside Aurora province based on its amended charter. In his defense, Jurado previously said that “under APECO’s amended Charter, also known as Republic Act 9490, as amended by R.A. 10083, it is clear that APECO is allowed to operate outside the Aurora Economic Zone as long as within a PEZA (Philippine Economic Zone) controlled area.” Aside from this, Jurado also denied other corruption allegations brought before Malacañang by lawyers of the OGCC. Jurado believes his conflict with OGCC lawyers stemmed when the Commission on Audit (COA) released its Audit Observation Memorandum dated March 12 which flagged that OGCC lawyers have been receiving, among others, “secret allowances” directly from some government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs). Because of the COA observation, Jurado said he issued an order dated March 16 which instructed OGCC lawyers to comply with the audit body by, among others, “refraining from collecting these so-called allowances/honoraria directly from GOCCs and to instead remit the same to the office (i.e., OGCC) through its Accounting Section for monitoring purposes” and “inform their client GOCCs to pay such allowances and honoraria to the office (i.e., OGCC and not directly to the OGCC lawyer concerned).” After the OGCC lawyers refused to follow his orders, Jurado said he was “constrained to serve, inform and direct the clients GOCCs to cease/refrain from further giving these allowances secretly to GOCC lawyers.” “Now, these OGCC lawyers are trying to malign my reputation by alleging that I am supposedly incompetent and corrupt,” he lamented. Even before the COA issued its observation report, Jurado recalled that when he began work in April 2017 some OGCC officers tried to convince him to receive allowance worth P500,000 per month but turned it down. “I also refused to receive the P1.2 million worth of service vehicle, and instead ordered the budget for such vehicle to be returned to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM),” he added. Read more: Duterte fires Gov’t Corporate Counsel Rudolf Philip Jurado