Palace: Duterte ditching colorful language an impossible dream

President Rodrigo Duterte will not do away with colorful language in his speeches amid criticism over his latest remarks against the Commission on Audit (COA), Malacañang said Thursday.

Duterte on Tuesday quipped about kidnapping and torturing COA personnel in front of 4,000 local government officials as he criticized the agency anew over its accountability rules on the spending of government funds.

Some lawmakers and the Commission on Human Rights then slammed Duterte’s  pronouncement with the CHR reminding him not to use such words when making jokes or criticizing a person or entity.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Duterte is a “forthright person and the more his critics and detractors lambast him on his style and action, the more he will stick to them.”

“This irreverent side of the Chief Executive has endeared him to the overwhelming majority which catapulted him to the presidency,” Panelo said.

“For him to change the very endearing ways that have struck a chord with the masses of our people just to please and appease his critics and the opposition is akin to dreaming an impossible dream.”

Panelo said Duterte’s remarks against the COA were “expressions of his exasperation and vexation against its application of stringent rules that delays government projects, made in playful jest as his usual hyperbolic style.”

“The message put across and delivered to our people by spicy remarks is lost on his detractors who don’t see anything good in what he does but certainly not to the Filipino people,” the Palace official said.

Panelo said the President is an “action man” who detests inefficiency and delays in the delivery of public service “which can be avoided by COA’s application of strict rules liberally but not in derogation of what the law requires and still within its ambit.”

“Auditing protocols can be observed without derailing government projects. It requires creativity and dexterity but always within the impositions required by law,” Panelo said.

Panelo, in his regular press briefing on Thursday, said Congress can amend the procedures of COA's auditing protocols by doing away with certain provisions that impair the delivery of services to the public.

“Kung ang requirement mo sa bidding for instance, mayroong number of days na kailangan mag-submit ka ng ganito. Puwede mo namang i-reduce iyon, kasi usually matagal talaga ang processing,” he said.

“So you simplify the bidding procedures para hindi matagal. Kung maraming requirements, mahihirapan iyong mga aplikante or iyong bidder o eh ‘di, tanggalin mo.”

A day after he criticized the COA, Duterte said in a speech in Masbate on Wednesday that he hoped that his colorful language has not offended anyone.

Duterte said he was “pursuing the limit of civility” by attacking those who unfairly treated him. — MDM/KBK, GMA News