The Basis of Blasphemy

Hole of Justice

by Peter G. Jimenea

 

Blasphemy!

 

The new Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales should exercise proper and strict monitoring of her people because there was no guarantee that when Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez stepped down, all crooks have gone with her.

 

Look at the Iloilo City Housing Project for City Hall employees at Pavia, Iloilo. The case for Violation of the Anti Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (R.A. 3019) against the concerned officials was filed in 2004 but only slept there at the office of Ombudsman Gutierrez for over five years.  

 

In 2010, Overall Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro sent a decision to Visayas Deputy Ombudsman Pelagio Apostol indicting former Mayor Mansueto Malabor, et al, but still groping in the dark for probable cause against the implementing Mayor Jerry Trenas (now congressman) and his wards.

 

This is what got us so badly disillusioned. Even a fish vendor can easily say that the defiance of the mayor to the two urgent resolutions of the Sangguniang Panlungsod requesting him to suspend the project and sue the contractor has an accompanying obligation.

 

But the Office of the Ombudsman is privileged too, to exercise selective prosecution. In Office of the Ombudsman v. De Sahagun, the Court held that the period stated in Sec. 20 (5) of R.A. No. 6770, is not a prescription but discretion of the Ombudsman to investigate a particular offense or not.

 

The provision is construed as the permissive and operating to confer discretion. The Court consequently added; where the words of a statute are clear, plain and free from ambiguity, they must be given their literal meaning and applied without attempted interpretation.”

 

That’s it. But worse, the November 11, 2012 decision of the Ombudsman after review by Dir. Virginia Palanca Santiago, recommended for approval by Deputy Ombudsman Apostol to Ombudsman Morales for signing (which the latter approved) has nearly put me in the brink of insanity!

 

It reads; “The Information accusing Jerry P. Trenas, Melchor Tan, Edwin Bravo, Catherine Tingson and Alex Trinidad for Violation of Sec. 3, Par (e) of RA 3019 as amended, for causing the release of the P43,807,733.33 for construction works of the ICHP in Pavia, Iloilo, despite reports that substandard materials were used in the project and defects, deficiencies and lapses in the works were NOTED, is hereby SET ASIDE.”

 

SET ASIDE with nothing follows? This vague decision of the Ombudsman is what got me so excited about. Sec. 26, of the Ombudsman Act of 1987 dictates; “the Ombudsman shall receive complaints from any source in whatever form concerning an official act or omission.

 

That it shall act on the complaint immediately and if it finds the same entirely baseless, it shall dismiss the same and inform the complainant of such dismissal citing the reason thereof.” Yet they can’t find probable cause against the mayor? Baloney!

 

Probable cause needs only to rest on evidence showing that most likely than not, a crime has been committed. It demands more than suspicion and requires less than evidence that would justify indictment. The unauthorized payment of P43,807,733.73 is already embraced in RA 3019!

 

This payment alone can lead a reasonably discreet and prudent man to believe that an offense had been committed.   So why not DISMISS the case if it is baseless? Why only SET ASIDE? Are they aware of the consequences of this decision arrived at?

 

The dangling of decision for many years has created an impression without affirming the perception that the Office of the Ombudsman is, although run by people with more knowledge of the law, are human beings and prone to yield to temptation of greed!

 

Lowly Ombudsman employees are most sorely tempted to steal but don’t. This story won’t easily go away. It would only reinforced what we strongly believe. Deliberate or not, this injustice to the taxpayers’ money has become a scroll that forms the basis of their…… see the title !