Lawyer opposes Batacan bid for Ombudsman
Lawyer Ferdinand Topacio has formally asked the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) not to put his fellow defense lawyer Edna Batacan on its shortlist of nominees for Ombudsman.
Topacio accused Batacan of charging his “mutual client of some renown” P8 million to arrange the dismissal of complaints then pending in the Office of the Ombudsman.
“Said client lamented to me that Attorney Batacan asked from him, and was given, the amount of P8 million because the said person was inveigled by Attorney Batacan to the effect that the amount was being requested by certain persons in the Ombudsman,” Topacio said in a letter to the JBC, which is vetting candidates for a new Ombudsman.
No refund
But when the supposed effort to fix the case fell flat, Batacan failed to return the money, Topacio said.
“Nothing, however, came out [of] it since the case was nonetheless filed, and Attorney Batacan never refunded the money to the client until the time of this writing,” Topacio said in his June 18 letter, which was made public on Thursday.
The client was not identified in the letter because Topacio said he had not yet secured “his waiver.”
But Topacio and Batacan are known to have had former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo as a client.
They both took part in his successful defense against the case of the scuttled $329-million National Broadband Network deal with China’s ZTE Corp. in the Sandiganbayan.
Aside from the unrefunded P8 million, Topacio claimed the client complained that Batacan “tried to charge him P1 million as photocopying expenses.”
She was, however, unable to support the reimbursement demand, Topacio claimed.
“Verily, our country cannot be saddled with an Ombudsman for seven years with such lack of honesty and moral uprightness,” Topacio said.
Rambling response
Batacan was asked about Topacio’s “vigorous opposition” during her public interview with the JBC on June 20. But her rambling response was difficult to understand.
“Attorney Topacio was saying I asked, according to his client, I asked how much for a Xerox fee of documents. The documents were so high. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I-I-I, probably. But, I don’t, I don’t remember. It was too long already,” she said.
Without directly responding to the allegation of a dismissal fee, Batacan told the JBC that she resigned from Arroyo’s legal team “for personal reasons.”
“I was bothered by my conscience,” she said.
Batacan said she left the defense team because she was a former classmate of Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang.
Another reason she cited was Arroyo’s rejection of her request for “some ‘pasalubong’ for the media” (handouts for reporters)—shirts or chocolates.
“‘No, that is their job,’” Batacan quoted Arroyo as saying in response. “He was so adamant.”
The Inquirer tried to reach Batacan for clarification on Thursday, but she had not responded to the paper’s request for comment as of press time.
‘Front-runner’
The JBC would submit a shortlist of qualified nominees from which President Duterte would choose a new Ombudsman.
Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales will finish her term on July 25.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on June 21 that he believed Batacan was the “front-runner,” along with Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Martires and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III.
