(Eagle News) – Opposition senator Bam Aquino said Wednesday, May 16, that the government “should work to strengthen” the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) if it was “serious in eradicating corruption.”
Aquino, whose aunt former President Cory Aquino established the PCGG, made the statement a day after the House of Representatives, voting 162-10, approved House Bill No. 7376, which seeks to abolish the PCGG and transfer the commission’s powers to the Office of the Solicitor General.
He noted that in the 30 years of PCGG’s existence, the commission has succeeded in recovering $3.6 billion or P170 billion pesos of the estimated $10 billion of what he said were the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, the Aquinos’ political rivals.
The recovered funds, the senator said, have been used to support the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and the reparation of Martial Law victims.
“Sa halip na buwagin, mas magandang palakasin pa ang PCGG dahil marami pang pera at marami pang bank accounts ang hindi pa naibabalik sa mga Pilipino,” he claimed.
He added that the abolition of the PCGG will “institutionalize historical revisionism.”
“Pilit na binabago ang kasaysayan sa pagkilos na ito,” he said.
https://youtu.be/vBZdhtaR00Q
