PHILIPPINE President Benigno Aquino III has accepted the resignation of Customs Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence Danilo Lim, who tendered his resignation after the chief executive rebuked the Bureau of Customs in his last State of the Nation Address to Congress last month.
Aquino’s move belied earlier speculation that Lim, seen as the nemesis of smugglers when he was appointed to the Bureau of Customs about two years ago, would be retained as the agency’s intelligence chief.
“I talked to him, got his side; he will be given a new assignment outside of the Bureau of Customs,” the President told reporters after his keynote address at the Mindanao Business Conference in Davao City last Thursday.
The President said Juan Lorenzo Tañada, deputy commissioner for the internal administration group who had also tendered his resignation, would be retained even as Malacañang would pursue a revamp at the bureau, which Aquino had accused of incompetence and corruption.
“After we finished the plans, you will see radical transformation of the Bureau of Customs,” the President said.
There is still no word as to where Lim is headed.
Lim resigned on July 22, hours after Aquino’s SONA. His boss, Customs chief Rozzano Rufino Biazon, also offered his resignation to Aquino, but the President decided to give him another chance.
Lim said the office of Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. received his resignation letter early Tuesday, July 23, in Malacañang.
“The expectation was simply too much,” the retired general said then. “I told Secretary Ochoa, please just give me another agency.”
Photo from www.president.gov.ph
