Malacañang, the presidential palace, has no information that Henry Aguda has resigned as secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the Philippines’ tech ministry. Asked about it at the Palace’s October 7th press briefing, Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said in Filipino: “Wala rin ganoong impormasyon dahil kakakausap pa lang natin kay Secretary Henry Aguda” (We have no such information either, because we just spoke with Secretary Henry Aguda).
The rumor started on Facebook on October 6th, with a post saying, in Filipino, that Aguda had reportedly submitted a resignation letter to Malacañang. It named no source, and it tied his exit partly to the Discord block.
That block is the obvious backdrop. By law, the DICT secretary chairs the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC), the government’s cybercrime agency. The CICC gave Discord and Reddit 24 hours to name a local representative, and said on September 23rd that only Reddit got more time. Discord was blocked that day. It was unblocked on September 24th, after what Aguda described as successful negotiations with the company, and the DICT and CICC held a press conference on Discord that day. Blocking a whole platform to make a company name a local representative was always going to land badly.
Castro ended the briefing by reading a statement from Aguda, meant to settle the talk about his resignation. In it, Aguda said he was staying “focused on carrying out my responsibilities.” As DICT secretary, it said, “I serve at the pleasure of the President,” and he respected “the President’s prerogative in matters concerning his Cabinet and his administration.” Nowhere did it say he hadn’t resigned.
Correction, October 12th: An earlier version of this story said Aguda hadn’t commented publicly. He had: Castro read his statement at the end of the briefing. We’ve also removed claims we couldn’t trace to a primary source, and now cite the briefing itself.
Update, October 12th: Aguda has since resigned, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla said on October 10th. Read the follow-up.
