[필리핀 영토]

President Duterte said that he had fired several officials at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) because of their alleged involvement in corruption, particularly in reclamation projects in Manila, Manila Bulletin reported.

Duterte made the statement during a joint meeting of the National Task Force and Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-RTF-ELCAC) in Region VII in Lapu-Lapu City on March 31. In his speech, the President said that he had appointed Acting Environment Secretary Jim Sampulna to the position following the resignation of Roy Cimatu– who had resigned due to health reasons– because he fired all the other officials in the agency. “We have a new DENR acting secretary because I dismissed some Cabinet members and this is about the reclamation projects in front of Manila,” he said in Bisaya.

“I heard reports of corruption. So Secretary Sampulna is new because I fired them all,” he added. He, however, assured the public to trust that the government would get to the bottom of the issue through the Office of the Ombudsman, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), and the Sandiganbayan.