MANILA, Philippines — Cause-oriented group Tindig Pilipinas yesterday asked President Duterte to prove his integrity by signing a waiver for his bank accounts or resign from office.
“Sign the waiver. Integrity demands it. Resign if you cannot give us an answer. Integrity likewise demands it,” the group told the President.
Tindig Pilipinas issued the challenge to Duterte as it expressed utmost alarm over the Office of the Ombudsman’s revelation that it has documents of Duterte’s alleged billions in banks.
“#TindigPilipinas! views with utmost alarm the ombudsman’s announcement today that it has documents that confirm previously exposed bank accounts of President Duterte in amounts worth billions of pesos,” Tindig Pilipinas said in a statement.
“He cannot just laugh this off, dissemble yet again, contradict himself as if this is an acceptable quirk of his character. Most of all, we cannot allow this administration to create a counter crisis to distract our people from seeking answers,” Tindig Pilipinas said.
Tindig Pilipinas said that Duterte should answer the allegations directly.
“The question is very simple: where did these billions come from? Then candidate Duterte painted himself as a poor man who built his fortune on his decades as a salaried civil servant. Yet, even assuming we would accept his revised story that his parents gave him a sizeable inheritance, that cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, explain the billions,” Tindig Pilipinas said.
“We all know where the fortunes of public officials with no known livelihood come from – corruption, smuggling, crime syndicates and drugs. Tell us, President Duterte, if it is none of these, then what is it?” Tindig Pilipinas added.
Tindig Pilipinas said Duterte should live up to his campaign slogan.
“You ran on a platform of anti-corruption, anti-crime and anti-drugs. Now you need to explain in a clear, detailed and unequivocal way what the sources of your wealth are, when you earned which amounts and where the amounts are now,” Tindig Pilipinas said.
Tindig Pilipinas added that “the only way to do this is to sign a full waiver that will allow the Filipino people to scrutinize your explanations, in the light of the facts.”
“Only complete transparency is the answer which can end our doubts about your integrity. If you refuse to sign a waiver and to refute even a whiff of unexplained wealth, then integrity also demands that you live up to your repeated promise – that you will resign. And we quote: ‘If Trillanes can prove his allegation that I have amassed P2 billion illegally or if that bank account under my name has a total deposit at one time of even just half a billion, I will resign as President immediately,’” Tindig Pilipinas said.
“Mr. President, this is not merely a whiff. It is a stench that assaults the nostrils of every Filipino who cares about the nation… #SignOrResign!”