(Eagle News) — “Bring back” the justice department’s “dignified image.”
This, according to incoming Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, was the instruction given to him by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Guevarra made the revelation in a text message to reporters on Friday.
“The President seldom sees me, yet he entrusts such a sensitive position to me. I’m overwhelmed with such confidence,” Guevarra said.
According to Guevarra, he would “wind up for a few days” in the Office of the President, where he so far serves as Senior Deputy Executive Secretary.
Guevarra graduated from Ateneo de Manila University with a political science degree in 1974, and then took up graduate studies in Economics at the University of the Philippines.
His career in government began in the National Economic Development Authority and the Central Bank, while he was taking up law in Ateneo.
In 1985, he placed second in the bar examinations, and two years later, he worked with members of the 1987 Constitutional Commission.
Guevarra was also a deputy of Paquito Ochoa, the Executive Secretary of then-President Benigno Aquino III.
Guevarra’s appointment was announced shortly after Aguirre’s resignation was announced by the President on Thursday, April 3.
Prior to this, speculation had been rife Aguirre would be the next to be sacked.
This was after the President expressed displeasure over the DOJ’s National Prosecution Service’s dismissal of drug charges against self-confessed drug distributor Kerwin Espinosa and others. Moira Encina