Aguirre: No order to shred papers, but what's wrong with waste disposal?
MANILA, Philippines — Former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II on Monday denied reports and social media posts that his office shredded important documents before he left as department chief.
In a statement to reporters, Aguirre said that he did not give any order to his employees to shred documents on his last day in office. “If any shredding was done, I know nothing about it,” he added.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, in a message to reporters, said that the department “will try to find out what kind of documents were disposed of.”
He added that he will also ask his predecessor on the matter.
Before Aguirre left his office, several high-profile cases were left pending review, including:
- the dismissal of drug raps against several executives of the Bureau of Customs, including former ex-Customs chief Nicanor Faeldon
- the state witness application of Janet Napoles, alleged mastermind of pork barrel scam
- the reopening of the drug raps against Kerwin Espinosa, Peter Lim and a dozen others.
Malacañang did not detail the reasons for Aguirre’s resignation, who was, then, facing heavy criticism for the “mishandling” of the case against Lim, Espinosa and others.
Prior to President Rodrigo Duterte's announcement that Aguirre had resigned, he was quoted by presidential spokesman Harry Roque as telling the Justice chief that he would take Espinosa's place in jail if the confessed drug dealer goes free.
Guevarra already said that he will place the Napoles and Espinosa cases at the top of his priority list.
READ: Six controversial cases that earned Aguirre criticism
Shredded documents?
Media reports have cited social media posts that supposedly show bags of shredded documents at the DOJ.
But Justice Undersecretaries Erickson Balmes and Reynante Orceo, in separate messages to reporters, also denied their offices had had any documents shredded.
Balmes even quipped that “in the first place, the shredder in my office is not working.”
“Assuming for the sake of argument that it was true, what is wrong with shredding papers when what were shredded were already considered waste?” Aguirre added.
The former Justice chief said that if the reports are true, the shredding may have been carried out in preparation for Guevarra’s assumption of office. The documents may have been “unneeded or unwanted,” Aguirre added.
“To ascribe malicious imputations against the supposed acts of my people is very irresponsible journalism,” the former Justice chief also said.
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