“I NEED a killer for that position,” President Rodrigo Duterte is reported to have declared when he decided to designate retired general Alexander Ferrer Balutan, general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). Although his immediately prior position was Director General of the Bureau of Corrections, Balutan was Commander of the AFP East Mindanao Command (Eastmincom) when prevailed upon by Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre to leave his unexpired military term in order to sit as chief of the corruption-ridden BuCor. (Remember the illegal drugs syndicate that was exposed as being conducted right from the sanctum sanctorum of the Muntinlupa prison?) He has gone that high in the military ranks as AFP regional commander, and this should make him best fit, according to President Duterte’s criteria, to head the evidently more corruption-infested PCSO. From as far back as his stint in the Philippine Marines when he was Commander of the 7th Marine Battalion Landing Team, Balutan has earned the moniker Mandirigma, a reputation which among Marines continues to stick to this day – and which should suggest much of the kind of “killer” General Balutan is.
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