President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has issued his first two executive orders as the new head of government, abolishing an anti-corruption body created by his predecessor and reorganizing certain offices under his watch to streamline the bureaucracy.
In Executive Order No. 1, signed on June 30 but was issued to the media only on Thursday, Marcos dissolved the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission and the Office of the Cabinet Secretary.
Marcos stressed the need to reorganize some offices under the Office of the President and various attached agencies by abolishing "duplicated and overlapping official functions" to achieve "simplicity, economy and efficiency" in the bureaucracy.
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The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission was created by former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2018 to ensure accountability from public officials and help rid the government of graft and corruption.
Under EO 1, the anti-corruption commission's powers and functions will be transferred to the Office of the Deputy Secretary for Legal Affairs, while the existing Cabinet Secretariat will be placed under the direct control and supervision of the Presidential Management Staff.
His first EO also creates the role of Presidential Adviser on Military and Police Affairs, which will be under the Office of the Special Assistant to the President.
The second EO reorganizes the Presidential Communications Operations Office, and renames it as the Office of the Press Secretary, headed by a press secretary, the role currently assigned to radio commentator and vlogger Trixie Cruz-Angeles.
It also abolishes the Office of the Presidential Spokesperson, with all its permanent personnel, equipment and functions transferred also to the OPS.
Marcos previously said that he would not have a spokesperson as president, instead he would face the media himself for their queries. Cruz-Angeles also typically holds press briefings on matters related to policy statements of the president.
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