Duterte says he offered to resign during meeting with military

President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday revealed that, during a meeting with commanders of the Philippine Armed Forces, and by with his frustration with government corruption, he had offered to resign from the presidency if the heads of the major services agreed he should leave office.

"You know, at one time I was so exasperated in a command conference that I asked that if every major commanders of the... of the Armed Forces, Navy, Army… Sabi ko, 'Tumindig lang kayong apat ngayon. You stand up to signify your willingness that I will step down and I will step down,'” recounted Duterte, who was speaking the launch of former President Fidel Ramos' book "Prosper Thy Neighbor".

"I offered to step down. Sabi ko hindi ko kaya. Corruption dito tapos maasahan mo dito, pagdating mo meron na naman na bago. It was a Cabinet meeting then, after that a command conference, sabi ko 'Hindi ko kaya'. Hindi ko kayang habulin. Hindi ko talaga kayang habulin."

Duterte said that none of the major service commanders, and not even Philippine National Police commanders, had taken him up on his offer.

The president thus took the results of the meeting to mean that he needed to keep working on ridding the government of corruption.

And one way this could be accomplished was through the creation of  "Bureau of Supply" - an office Duterte said existed under the General Services Department during Ferdinand Marcos' Presidency.

"Marcos said, 'You know, go into some kind of a canvassing.' There is always the international pricing. Kung magbili ka ng tractor, tingnan mo lang. And it’s a matter of three or four percent mga commission-commission 'yan pati freight," Duterte elaborated.

"Pero kung mag-abot ng mga... ang price difference, you compare it with the international pricing and it's about 10 or 20 percent [higher], that's corruption. So malaman ko man."

This General Services office would have no other duty than to compare prices of government purchases, from "paper clips down to paper bonds", and to call the Executive's attention whether some of these purchases was unusually expensive.

However, Duterte did not clarify whether the duties of this new body he was contemplating would overlap those of the Commission on Audit, whose tasks included the "prevention and disallowance of irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant or unconscionable expenditures, or uses of government funds and properties." — DVM, GMA News