P-Noy and the Ombudsman

In a rare public display of her emotions, embattled Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez finally broke her silence against what she deplored was an obvious renewed vilification campaign against her. Although she admitted being “hurt” over these stepped up attacks on her person, Gutierrez appeared calm and composed in a press conference she called last week at the Office of the Ombudsman in Quezon City.

Despite holding a very powerful position as Ombudsman, Gutierrez has been known for her being a low-key personality who shuns media hype for herself. So when she called a press conference last week, it was attended not only by reporters but also the officers and employees at the Office of the Ombudsman in a show of support for her.

This was after the Ombudsman was being hit left and right by people identified with the new powers-that-be who demand her resignation. Their beef against Gutierrez, among other things, but most especially, is her being an appointee of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The corollary reason is the Ombudsman’s being a former classmate of the ex-President’s husband, former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo in the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law.

Fortunately for Gutierrez, the Ombudsman is protected under our country’s 1987 Constitution. The Ombudsman can be removed from office only through impeachment. The framers of our Constitution gave the Ombudsman a fixed term of seven years in office. Further, Section 13, Article XI of the Constitution and provisions of Republic Act 6770, or the Ombudsman Act of 1989, spelled out the powers, functions and duties of the Ombudsman.

These laws of the land made sure the institution of the Ombudsman is insulated from political influence and interference whoever is in power.

There was nothing new about these familiar demands again for her resignation. And the same faces were making the same demands when these people were still then identified with the opposition during the Arroyo administration. They tried to impeach her in Congress last year. But the House committee on justice dismissed their impeachment complaint for lack of substance.

At her press conference last week, Gutierrez strongly took exceptions to these repeated accusations against her of alleged twisting the ends of justice out of sheer loyalty to ex-President Arroyo and her husband. “The Constitution enumerates the specific grounds for impeachment. Alleged closeness to the appointing authority is not one of them,” Gutierrez pointed out.

Gutierrez was appointed as Ombudsman in December 2005 and therefore she still has two more years left in her term that ends in December 2012. “I would have preferred to fast track my term,” Gutierrez told me over dinner last Friday night. Although she inhibited from the NBN-ZTE case, the Ombudsman ruling that cleared the First Couple from alleged involvement was again raised as ground for her resignation.

I have known Gutierrez from the time I covered the justice beat as a young reporter. She is one of the tough government female lawyers I knew at the Department of Justice (DOJ). She rose from the ranks from State Counsel to Undersecretary of the Justice Department. Twice, Gutierrez was appointed as Acting Secretary to fill the vacant seats of Secretary Hernani Perez in 2002 and then after Secretary Simeon Datumanong resigned in 2004 in order to run for Congress.

She was the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel of Mrs. Arroyo when she was nominated to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) following the vacancy at the Ombudsman. The JBC unanimously voted Gutierrez. As I’ve known her, she quietly worked in the background without any fanfare despite the high-profile cases she handled for the government as Ombudsman, unlike her media-hound predecessors.

To her credit, Gutierrez never used nor abused such powers of the Ombudsman to take revenge against her detractors and arch-critics, many of whom have pending graft cases before her office. “Hindi ako sanay sa ganyang show of power,” she quipped. She does not move around with wang-wang in her car nor her vehicle carry the Number “6” plate. Her enemies have accused her of many things but corruption is not one of them.

The attack missiles came back to her after the Ombudsman’s Task Force Abono added former Agriculture Secretary Luis “Cito” Lorenzo as co-accused in the infamous fertilizer scam.Task Force Abono was especially formed by the Ombudsman to investigate the alleged P728 million fertilizer fund scam. Lorenzo was not included in the first set of graft charges because he left the Philippines and lived for a long time in the United States.

Ex-President Arroyo, Lorenzo, former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante, and other public officials were haled to the Ombudsman for their alleged participation in the misuse of P728 million fertilizer funds. The state funds supposedly allocated for acquisition of farm inputs like fertilizer in line with the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani Program were allegedly funneled to the election campaign of Mrs. Arroyo during the May 2004 presidential elections. Thus, Gutierrez inhibited herself from the case.

Lorenzo recently returned to the country and met in a birthday party and even had a casual conversation with President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III (P-Noy). Lorenzo’s coming back to the country came close to the heels of official reports submitted to the Commission on Elections that the Lorenzo family was among the biggest campaign donors of Aquino during the May 2010 presidential elections.

After he showed up in public, the Ombudsman’ Task Force Abono announced they have now filed charges of malversation of public funds, graft, falsification of public documents and other administrative cases against the former Agriculture Secretary on the same fertilizer scam case.

To his credit, P-Noy indicated in no uncertain terms he is not someone who would be swayed by any camps for, or against the Ombudsman. But he did echo his observations on the timing of the case filed against Lorenzo. P-Noy declared his every intention to fully tap the powers of the Ombudsman to help fulfill his campaign promise if he gets to sit down and talk with Gutierrez.

“Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap” will not be reduced to mere slogan if both P-Noy and the Ombudsman conduct in synch the anti-graft campaign.