'Plea deal a betrayal of public trust'

MANILA, Philippines –  Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez has betrayed public trust by allowing her prosecutors to strike a plea deal with accused plunderer Carlos Garcia, the Senate Blue Ribbon committee declared yesterday.

“She has betrayed the public trust. There is also another alternative that is open to Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, and that alternative is resignation. We beg you, Madam Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez: please spare the country of this conflict,” committee chairman Sen. Teofisto Guingona III said at a press conference yesterday. He said his committee finds the agreement “null and void.”

The committee is also pushing for the removal of Special Prosecutor Wendell Paras Sulit, Deputy Special Prosecutor Robert Kallos, acting Deputy Special Prosecutor Jesus Micael, and assistant special prosecutors Jose Balmeo Jr. and Joseph Capistrano.

“We recommend that they be removed from office. We recommend to the Office of the President, which has jurisdiction over special prosecutors, to file the necessary administrative and criminal cases against the special prosecutor,” Guingona said.

“Our first recommendation is to impeach Ombudsman Gutierrez because it’s our view that Ombudsman Gutierrez has betrayed public trust,” he said.

In a 65-page partial report, the Blue Ribbon committee noted that Gutierrez “defied law and jurisprudence” when she disregarded some requirements for a plea bargaining agreement.

The committee report said the Ombudsman “is guilty of non-feasance for lacking the prosecutorial zeal” in handling graft and corruption cases. It also recommended that special prosecutors be made accountable for the plea bargain deal.

He also called on his colleagues in the House of Representatives to impeach Gutierrez and transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate “so as to hold the Ombudsman accountable” under Article IX of the 1987 Constitution on the Accountability of Public Officers.

The prosecution needs 17 votes to “convict” Gutierrez but the administration reportedly doesn’t have the numbers in the Senate.

“Right now, I called for the resignation because it is the proper thing to do. Now regardless whether we have the numbers or not, it is the right thing to do because it’s very obvious that this case has been made weaker, and obfuscating so that Gen. Carlos Garcia can go free,” Guingona said.

“Her present occupancy of the Office of the Ombudsman has definitely tarnished the institution’s reputation,” the report added.

Guingona also said that while the President may simply remove the special prosecutors, they being presidential appointees, he explained that they should also be accorded due process. “They have also betrayed trust,” he said.

In the partial Blue Ribbon committee report, it was noted that the Office of the Special Prosecutor is directly under the Ombudsman’s control and supervision. 

Command responsibility

The Blue Ribbon committee noted that the Ombudsman should be made to answer under the principle of command responsibility for her prosecutors “misconduct.”

“Thus, if Garcia is eventually freed and the rest of the plundered money is never recovered, it is clear from the statements of the Ombudsman and the team of the Special Prosecutor themselves that it is not because of the weakness of evidence but due to their failure to prosecute,” the report said.

The committee also found prosecutorial misconduct on part of the Ombudsman and the special prosecutor on the case of another military comptroller, retired Gen. Jacinto Ligot, whose illegally acquired wealth reportedly amounted to at least P740 million. Ligot is facing mere forfeiture case, which is civil in nature. It did not even include his alleged ill-gotten wealth frozen by the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

“Thus, it seems that the Ombudsman has made it a habit not only to sit on cases thereby delaying them; but also ignoring the presence of the grounds with which to file cases. This is the height of betrayal of public trust,” said Guingona, in an executive summary of the Blue Ribbon report.

With reservations

Seven of the 13 senators who signed the report did so with reservation.

They were Senators Franklin Drilon, Francis Escudero, Loren Legarda, Ramon Revilla Jr., Juan Miguel Zubiri, Pia Cayetano and Manuel Villar.

The others who signed aside from Guingona were Sergio Osmeña III, Ralph Recto, Francis Pangilinan, Antonio Trillanes IV, and Joker Arroyo.

Senate Minority Leader Alan Cayetano also signed the report as ex-officio member. 

Those who did not sign were Senators Edgardo Angara, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, and Gregorio Honasan II. Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who is in hiding, was unable to sign the report.

“With reservations and interpellation re: the call for impeachment as it would affect my vote as senator-judge,” Legarda said.

Escudero, who is not an LP member but an ally of President Aquino, expressed reservation on the impeachment clause “as it might reach us and constitute pre-judgment.”

Zubiri also expressed reservations “since it may affect my impartiality when the proper time comes and the Senate is convened as an impeachment court.”

Villar also shared his reservation, noting that the impeachment process must be observed. “Also I did not participate in the hearings, so as to make definitive conclusions,” Villar said.

Revilla said his signature should be asserted as “without prejudice to my impartiality as impeachment judge.”

Guingona, of the Liberal Party, doused speculations that his move to come out with the partial committee report was part of LP’s stand to speed up the proceedings against Gutierrez.

“No, it’s not. Well, if you at a look at those who signed, not all are LP... Undoubtedly, we are members of the LP but it is not a party stance,” Guingona said in an interview.

In concurring with the report, minority leader Cayetano said he supports the committee in its findings that the agreement “should be set aside for the reasons already stated in the committee report.” 

“The said plea bargaining is patently void and illegal and against sound public policy” said Cayetano, who authored Resolution 337 that led to the probe on the plea bargaining agreement.

Honasan did not sign the partial committee report, stressing that he inhibited from the inquiry because he and Garcia were classmates at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) batch of 1971.

Fruit of a poisonous tree

Guingona also rebuffed Gutierrez for stating that they have made plea bargaining agreements in the past without the consent of the offended party.

“This practice however obtaining does not necessarily turn something wrong into something right. An erroneous practice even if done frequently can never legitimize the act,” the report read.

“Consequently, all the actions undertaken by the Office of the Special Prosecutor and Garcia et al that follow as a result of the defective plea bargaining agreement are also defective and of no legal effect,” the 65-page report added. “This is akin to the doctrine of the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree,” Guingona said.

He also said the “lopsided” plea bargaining deal should prompt lawmakers to pass the Freedom of Information Act as well as amend the Anti-Money Laundering Law.

Legal backers

The committee cited legal opinions from Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and UP College of Law Dean Marvic Leonen in buttressing its report.

“Not only does the plea bargain not have a requisite consent for the settlement of obligations as required by General Accounting and Auditing Manual, it is also grossly disproportionate and thus, arguably, inconsistent with our anti-graft and corrupt practices statutes,” the report read, quoting portions of Leonen’s legal points.

“If Sulit et al truly believed the evidence to be insufficient, their obligation was to find more evidence to bolster the charge, in the language of the Supreme Court, ‘clarifying contradictions and filling up gaps and loopholes in their evidence,’’’ the report read.

“In sum, Sulit et al. wavered between finding that the evidence is strong and the evidence is weak. By approving Garcia’s plea bargaining agreement, Sulit et al, deemed the evidence weak. But by subsequently opposing Garcia’s petition for bail, Sulit et al deemed the evidence strong,” the committee report read.  

The Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) issued a statement calling for Gutierrez’s resignation. 

“We urge Ombudsman Gutierrez to be truthful to herself and the people she swore to serve by facing the impeachment proceedings without evasion and consider her resignation as a moral choice,” it said.

Defiant

Gutierrez vowed not to resign, saying she is ready to face an impeachment trial at the Senate.

“There is no law that says you should resign if you have a case. There would be no due process,” she said in a news conference yesterday.

Gutierrez’s lawyer and spokesman Salvador Panelo said the evidence against the Ombudsman in the impeachment complaints filed against her “is as clear as mud while the conspiracy to oust her from office is as clear as the morning sun.”

“The grounds for her impeachment, apart from being politically motivated the same being engineered by those who have axe to grind and congressmen facing graft charges in the Office of the Ombudsman, do not amount to betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution,” he told The STAR.

“Resignation is not an option as it deprives Merceditas Gutierrez of the opportunity to answer the charges against her in the proper forum even as it divests the people’s right to know the truth or falsity of the accusations against the Ombudsman,” Panelo said.

Meanwhile, lawmakers scored President Aquino for blaming Gutierrez for the Rizal Park hostage fiasco.

“There is no causal relationship between the possibly negligent act and the resulting tragedy,” Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga said.

House Minority Leader and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said if there is anyone to be blamed, it is Aquino.

“The ultimate culpability in the fatal hostage taking fiasco was with the Office of the President which lost control of the situation due to the lack of leadership and competence of concerned executive officials in confronting and solving the crisis,” Lagman said. - With Paolo Romero, Michael Punongbayan and Evelyn Macairan