Palace hits Morales, says no impasse

MANILA, Philippines — There is no impasse over President Duterte’s suspension of Overall Deputy Ombudsman Arthur Carandang, Malacañang said yesterday, as it lashed out at Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales for her continued refusal to enforce the President’s order.

“We don’t believe there’s an impasse. The President is the chief implementer of the law,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said.

This developed as Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay stressed that it is Morales, and not Duterte, who should discipline Carandang if the latter has committed wrongdoing.

“As the ombudsman’s agents, her deputies are accountable to her, not to the President,” he said.

Lagman was reacting to the insistence of Palace officials that it’s Duterte who should discipline Carandang despite a 2014 Supreme Court (SC) decision declaring as unconstitutional the grant by Congress of authority to the President to punish an erring deputy ombudsman.

He said the proper procedure is for the Office of the President to file a complaint against Carandang with the Office of the Ombudsman.

It is the ombudsman’s office, he maintained, that should investigate the respondent and impose a penalty if warranted.

Carandang’s suspension by the President, he pointed out, “is a legal aberration which, in the language of the Supreme Court in several decisions of similar import, is like a ‘lawless thing that can be treated as an outlaw and slain on sight or ignored wherever and whenever it exhibits its head’.”

“President Duterte cannot defy prevailing jurisprudence and law that deny the President the power to impose disciplinary sanctions on the ombudsman’s deputies,” he stressed.

He added that Carandang’s suspension “continues the pattern of blatant disregard by the Duterte administration of the rule of law.”

Morales has refused to enforce the Palace suspension order, saying it is against the 2014 SC ruling and is therefore unconstitutional.

Presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo had threatened Morales with criminal and administrative charges for such refusal, while Solicitor General Jose Calida indicated that filing an impeachment complaint against her was an option.

On the other hand, Roque said Malacañang would enforce its order but did not say how.

Lagman said Panelo was wrong with his threat against Morales. “I am sorry to say that Mr. Panelo does not know his law. No charges, except impeachment, can be filed against Ombudsman Morales because she is subject only to impeachment,” he said.

Last December, former Negros Oriental Rep. Jacinto Paras and Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption chairman Dante Jimenez filed an impeachment complaint against Morales.

However, the two failed to convince even one member of the House of Representatives to endorse their petition. Without an endorser, a complaint is a mere scrap of paper.

Paras and Jimenez have since been given government jobs by President Duterte. Paras was appointed an undersecretary at the Department of Labor and Employment, while Jimenez was named chairman of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission.