MANILA, Philippines—The Office of the Ombudsman may issue subpoenas to regional directors of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to explain the alleged involvement of former undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante in the P728 million fertilizer fund scam.
Assistant Ombudsman Mark Jalandoni told a press conference Wednesday that subpoenas could be sent to the directors “if it is warranted in the preliminary investigation.”
But lawyer Frank Chavez, who filed the original case in the Office the Ombudsman, said the agency should have issued the summons to the directors a long time ago.
The delay looks like “a prelude to a whitewash,” Chavez told the Inquirer in a phone interview. “If Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is really doing her job, those subpoenas should have been sent a long time ago.”
“The least the Office should do is to issue subpoenas and require these regional directors to put in writing what they said in the Senate to form part of the records of the Ombudsman,” Chavez said. He added that the affidavits of the regional directors could be studied in relation to a counter affidavit issued by Bolante.
“On the rare occasion it (Office of the Ombudsman) moves, it stirs its fingers out of sedation. But it is moving at speed bagal (slow),” the lawyer added.
Jalandoni said statements of the regional directors before the Senate “can be considered” in their investigation.
According to him, a new batch of findings related to the fertilizer fund scam will be released next week. This, he said, could lead to more charges against more congressmen who allegedly benefited from the release of the fertilizer fund, and other DA officials.
In a Senate hearing the other day, DA regional director Ricardo Oblena alleged that Bolante had ordered that the beneficiary of a questioned fertilizer fund be changed from a local government unit to a non-government organization (NGO).
Another regional director, Roger Chio of Region 12, contradicted Bolante’s claim during a hearing last week that after releasing the funds, he (Bolante) no longer had a hand in how the funds would be given out and what fertilizers were to be distributed to the farmers.
