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By Argyll Cyrus Geducos

President Duterte will wield his axe anew as he said that a lot of positions in government will soon be vacated by corrupt officials.

Duterte made the statement shortly after he announced that he fired  Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC) executive director Jose Antonio Goitia after the latter told people that he would be appointed Customs collector, and had already started went on a collection binge.

In an interview in Malacañang, Duterte said he will be looking not just into the PRRC, but also in other government agencies, including the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC).

“My intention is to wipe them out. All of them. Maraming bakante sa gobyerno. BIR pati Customs (A lot of positions will be vacated, including in the BIR and Customs),” he said Tuesday evening.

No more brokers

Meanwhile, Duterte said that he no longer wanted brokers at the BOC anymore since they were the source of corruption in the agency.

“Pagka may brokers, may corruption talaga ‘yan (If there are brokers, there is corruption).” he said.

“Take away the brokers and you would have cut corruption overnight. In a scale of 1 to 10, maybe you have reduced corruption to about 8 — 8 and one half,” he added.

Duterte said importers should just designate someone who will be accredited with the BOC, and they should be the only ones allowed to go there.

“You get an accreditation from the Customs collector. Ito ‘yung representative mo. Siya na ang maglakad. Siya na mismo (He is your representative, he will get your job done),” he said.

Just gross

Duterte also suggested a way to eliminate corruption in the BIR by doing away with the examiners.

“Pagka-gross ka, kung ano ‘yung sa resibo ‘yun na ‘yun. Kasi kung maghingi ka pa ng neto, idagdag mo pa ‘yung i-minus-minus at saka ‘yun ang bayaran mo, effectively you would have eliminated ‘yung examiner. Wala na ‘yan (If it’s gross, whatever is in your receipt, that’s it. Because if you still ask for the net, there will be more computations and you pay for it. Effectively, you would have eliminated the examiner),” he said.

“Tangalin mo ‘yung neto. Go gross. Lahat. Lahat-lahat dito sa… Puro gross ‘yan. Tayo lang nagne-neto. Ang neto, may corruption talaga ‘yan (Remove the net, let’s go gross. We’re the only ones doing the net and there’s corruption there),” he added.