President Rodrigo Duterte said that 89 barangay captains who are being investigated due to alleged irregularities in the distribution of cash assistance during the lockdown last year due to coronavirus disease pandemic have been preventively suspended for six months.

In his weekly "Talk to the People" on Monday night, Duterte read the names of the 89 barangay officials from Metro Manila and other regions in the country.

He said the preventive suspension has been ordered by the Office of the Ombudsman, which has been investigating the complaints.

"You are suspended while you are being investigated. Then at the end of the investigation, if you are good, then you are exonerated. But if you are guilty, I am asking now the Ombudsman, I'm requesting, most respectfully requesting the Ombudsman to dismiss them from the service," Duterte said.

Of those being investigated, 11 came from Metro Manila, three from Cordillera Administrative Region, 12 from Region I, 10 from Region II, three from Region III, four from Region IV-A, four from Region IV-B, nine from Region V, eight from Region VI, nine from Region VII, seven from Region VIII, three from Region X, five from Region XI, and one from Region XIII.

Last year, the government through the Department of Social Welfare and Development with the help of the local government units, distributed P5,000 to P8,000 cash assistance in two tranches to help the poorest of the poor and vulnerable sectors who were greatly affected by the lockdowns.

But some barangay officials allegedly played favorites or pocketed the funds. Celerina Monte/DMS