DAVAO CITY—President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said that corrupt government agencies will soon be history.

Speaking before a gathering of local officials at the Sulong Pilipinas local governance series held in Lanang on Tuesday (Sept.20), PRRD issued the pronouncement following his appointment of former police general Jose Jorge Corpuz as chairperson of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, which he said tops the list of government agencies being bled dry by corrupt officials.

He said he has tasked Corpuz to conduct a top-to-bottom overhaul of the PCSO and weed out scalawags in the agency found to be engaged in nefarious activities in connivance with other government officials.

PRRD said that with the installation of Corpuz as the new PCSO chief, he’s optimistic that the agency will be brought back on track.

“I hope things will improve. But sinabi ko you have to make a study. If I am not satisfied that it can really prevent corruption, I will recommend the abolition of the PCSO,” Duterte said.

He said similar problems have been plaguing the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

“Itong sa Customs, BIR, it will be history. I am warning the people there, either you stop or you will become part of history,” the President said.

Meanwhile, President Duterte said that since he assumed office on June 30, he has consistently done the very things he promised during his campaign.

For the other major concerns like the economy, the President said he has picked the best people for the job.

“Nung nanalo ako, ‘yun lang ang issue ko. And of course I said, the economic factors would come in, if you have already set up the government. So I’ll just hire the best economic minds of the country to work for me,” he said.

As mayor of Davao City, PRRD successfully purged the city’s problem of drugs and crime. Now that he has become the President, he said he did not realize the extent of the damage the illegal drug trade has done to the country and how it has corrupted some members of the police and even government officials.

Realizing the threat, PRRD declared an all-out war against illegal drugs and utilized both the police and military in the government’s intensified campaign. In less than three months, the public has begun to see a remarkedly different landscape.