Beware the ire of Conchita Carpio-Morales

The Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), at its observance of Constitution Day Tuesday night, bannered its guest of honor and speaker  Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales as a “fearless and peerless crusader against graft and corruption in public service.”

The late President Corazon Aquino declared the effectivity of the creation of the Office of the Ombudsman through Executive Order No. 243, and on May 12, 1988, the Office of the Ombudsman became operational.  The Ombudsman, or Tanodbayan ng Pilipinas, is responsible for investigating and prosecuting Philippine government officials accused of crimes, especially graft and corruption, and files the charges at the Sandiganbayan. It also receives complaints from citizens and organizations in the country.

Philconsa executive vice president Aniano A. Desierto, himself a former Ombudsman, introduced the speaker, whose office, he said, “requires a unique and painstaking leadership. Its mandate is to enforce integrity  and efficiency in the government service. Considering the demonstrated questionable mind of many public officials, past and present, you can imagine the magnitude of the challenge to the Ombudsman’s righteousness and tirelessness.”

The incumbent Ombudsman was appointed by President Benigno Aquino III  just after her retirement as associate justice of the Supreme Court on July 26, 2011.

Attorney Desierto described Ombudsman Carpio-Morales as “admirable . . . not just because of her being a woman and a lady but because of her strong sense of rectitude and judicial competence, but even more because of her superior qualifications for the position of Ombudsman.”

Proof of these, he said, “are her outstanding achievements as Ombudsman in less than four years in office. She charged a former woman president of the crime of plunder in the Sandiganbayan. She is the first Ombudsman to have charged three popular senators or the crime of plunder.  She just recently filed charges against five incumbent and former congressmen in connection with the PDAF anomaly. She has also charged a number of PNP generals of non-bailable offenses.” All the accused are under detention. All these, Desierto said, prove Morales’ “righteousness and independence of mind.”

Listening intently to the Ombudsman were officers and members of Philconsa, the respected organization of men and women charged with the mandate to preserve, protect, and defend the Philippine Constitution, and prominent members of the business and judicial community. They included Justice Manuel M.  Lazaro, the organization chair; Congressman  Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, president; retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, retired Justice Bernardo P. Pardo, scientist Nelia T. Gonzalez, and former  Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim.  

Ombudsman Carpio-Morales spoke about the efforts, gains, challenges and aspirations “of a country reeling for decades from the grips of corruption.” The gains have shown how  the Constitution’s article on Accountability of Public Officers “has traversed the divide ‘from text to context, from form to function, and from semantics to pragmatics.’”

She made it clear that the Ombudsman “heed(s) the tenets of the Constitution, not the tenant in Malacanang.” In all fairness to the President, she said, “he has never — directly or indirectly — interfered, suggested or intimated in how I resolve cases.”

In discharging its constitutional mandate and functions, she said the Office has been adopting a three-pronged approach as operational strategy, through punitive, preventive, and promotional means.

Under the punitive approach, the Office has prioritized resolving almost all high-profile cases, among them the PGMA cases involving the NBN-ZTE and PCSO Intelligence Fund; PNP cases involving the euro-generals, rubber boat procurement, chopper deal, light armored vehicle “ghost” repairs, DBP behest loans, the Pestano murder case, the perjury and forfeiture cases against the former Chief Justice and his wife, fertilizer fund cases,  the PDAF scam cases against three incumbent senators, five former representatives, and Janet Napoles.

“No one is spared”  from the chief prosecutor’s teams of investigators. Deputy and assistant ombudsmen are now facing criminal charges for extortion.

In terms of case disposition, the Office has  resolved 6,232 criminal and administrative cases for the year 2014. The Office docket has been trimmed drastically, criminal complaints resulted in the filing of  Informations in various courts. The Office, Morales said, projects  reaching  zero backlog by 2018, before her term ends. By the end of this year,  the Office is targeting to resolve all its remaining cases docketed 2012 and earlier.

Of great importance is the issuance of guidelines on case evaluation and records management through  a Complaint and Case Monitoring System. Lawyer-evaluators are assigned at the records division/sections to evaluate the complaints whether they merit further proceeds or otherwise outright dismissal. This will result in a more manageable case docket.

“Gradually, the nation is building and reaching that critical mass of social awakening in good governance. The people are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. That the impossible is, after all, possible. That crooks in government could really get punished. And that, in all fairness, there still remains a growing number of honest and dedicated public servants.”

In the second approach, the Ombudsman is not acting as a prosecutor or a disciplining authority.  “This time, it goes by the dictum that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of prosecution. Preventive measures are aimed at engaging the various sectors of society in corruption prevention efforts. “As there is yet no absolute cure to corruption, prevention appears to be the only antidote against the spreading of this social malady.”

Another corruption prevention project is the enhancement of the income and asset declaration system in the country by improving the effectiveness of the system of filing and analyzing Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs). “Indeed, the system of filing SALNS is recognized as a significant tool in detecting and preventing corruption. The Office has now resources to pursue institutional and technological advances in streamlining the procedure and transforming the manual-based system into an electronic or IT-based system, that should “make it easier for public servants to do good things and harder for them to do bad things.”

To complement these initiatives and capitalize on the opportunities for reform, the Office has submitted legislative proposals to Congress which aim to further strengthen anti-graft institutions, capacities and processes.?         

One proposed legislative package deals with addressing delays in the prosecution by the Ombudsman of criminal cases in the Sandiganbayan. One bill proposes providing of a single-justice reception of evidence. Here a chair of a Sandiganbayan division could designate one member to hear and receive evidence and resolve all pending incidents in the case, thereby encouraging or facilitating continuous trial.

Another seeks to enhance the Ombudsman’s capacity for asset recovery. The culprits should not be allowed to indulge and squander their ill-gotten wealth or criminal proceeds while the criminal case is pending.

Another is exempting the Ombudsman from the prohibition to use wiretapping as an investigation tool.

Ombudsman Carpio-Morales said that with the Ombudsman’s anti-corruption efforts, the Philippines has been recognized by Transparency International in its latest Corruption Index (CPI) released two months ago. It noted that the Philippines has advanced from a rank of 134 in 2010, to 129 in 2011, to 105 in 2012, to 94 in 2013, to a rank of 85 this year out of 175 countries surveyed. In a span of five years, the Philippines has improved by 49 notches.

Carpio-Morales expressed confidence that “the spirit of good governance and integrity will triumph over the forces that sow social inequities and economic disparities. Earnest cooperation and collective effort will allow the nation to attain its development objectives. These undertakings work toward ending the cycle of impunity and poverty, and cultivate a culture of integrity and excellence.”

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