Establishing a 24/7 government hotline, banning online gambling, and arresting fixers in government agencies were among the priorities listed down by President Duterte in his first day in office.
The President buckled down to work after taking his oath of office and convened the first meeting with the Cabinet in Malacañang to tackle policy concerns.
At the start of the Cabinet assembly, the President said they plan to set up a national hotline in which the public can report complaints directly to his office.
“It will be manned by 10 operators covering the entire country. The number is 8888. They can report to me any complaint and there will be a manager that will redirect their complaint to the proper office,” Duterte said.
Duterte also vowed to put a stop to the proliferation of online gambling in the country as he expressed concern about the negative impact on a person’s life. “Online gambling must stop. It’s out of control in Pagcor,” he said.
Duterte directed Pagcor chief Andrea Domingo to cancel the licenses given to online gambling “sometime soon,” lamenting the proliferation of online casinos across the country. “There is no way of government collecting taxes there online. How do you collect taxes there? Not exactly the taxes, I do not want a proliferation of gambling activities all over the country. Mahirap yan,” he said.
The country’s new president is also amenable to the creation of a new department that will look after the welfare of overseas Filipino workers. (Genalyn D. Kabiling)
