Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's tough stand on government corruption continues. The latest to fall in his campaign against ineptitude is £4 million ($5.25 million) worth of smuggled luxury cars and sports bikes.
BBC initially reported that the Philippine president personally saw the destruction of the smuggled luxury vehicles. In a video also seen in CNN's report-Duterte was seen watching as a bulldozer moved over 76 smuggled cars and motorbikes. Most of what was crushed under the weight of the construction vehicle included makes by Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and Lamborghini.
These vehicles and all the others that were crushed were smuggled illegally into the country. Those crushed were only part of the cargo; the cars are 800 in all. This is a sign of corruption, the government said; to combat this corruption, President Duterte signed Executive Order (EO) No.43, signing into existence the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission.
Inquirer reports that the role of this commission is to create a task force that is separate but still under the Office of the President. Its sole purpose is to combat corruption through assisting in chasing cases, creating checks and balances through lifestyle checks, and organizing fact-finding committees that will investigate allegations of corruption and graft in dealings with the government.
The commission was originally created because of suspicions of corruption in other branches of government, particularly the Office of the Ombudsman, whom the president accused of being partisan and subject to "selective justice."
President Duterte, meanwhile, did a repeat act in watching the public destruction of the luxury vehicles. It was only last February that an initial haul of contraband vehicles was caught. The president ordered these destroyed as well; he said that selling these vehicles instead set a dangerous precedent, allowing corrupt people as well as illegal syndicates to use them for illicit activities and criminal operations.
It was his platform against corruption and drugs that catapulted the president to the highest office in the Philippines. However, he was criticized heavily as the war on drugs turned brutal, journalists were purged, and government officials were dismissed from office. These were, however, part of his mandate to wage war on drugs and corruption in government.
