Be impervious to pressure, Morales tells successor

NO REGRETS Retiring on Thursday, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales declares that she has no regrets about any of her decisions recommending graft complaints against key personalities, including former Presidents, in the past seven years. —GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

Outgoing Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales on Tuesday offered an unsolicited advice to her successor: Be “impervious to pressure.”

Morales, who is stepping down on Thursday after seven years as the country’s top graft buster, also credited the media and civil society for assisting the Office of the Ombudsman and demanding public accountability from government officials and employees.

In her final press briefing, Morales was asked what the next Ombudsman should do in the face of possible pressure in connection with the cases being handled by the antigraft body.

“You should be impervious to pressure,” she said in response.

But she added quickly: “It’s really up to the person. They might say, ‘Who is she anyway to give me a piece of advice?’”

Morales also urged members of the media to continue to be vigilant at this time when “the assertion of press freedom was even more challenging.”

“The Ombudsman and the media, as entities both discharging watchful conscience, should continue to work hand in hand in upholding public interest, and keeping government resources, systems and personnel less vulnerable to corruption,” she said.

Search for truth

The search for truth or coverage of news should continue, Morales said, to overcome disinformation.

“It is high time that journalists reaffirm their commitment to truth and freedom by putting pen to paper in order for the story to see the light and combat the falsities that surround (us),” she said.

“I challenge you to continue emitting that spark even as my turn is about to come to a close,” she added.

Asked what she would have done for the agency if she were President, Morales said she would have praised the Office of the Ombudsman “for its relentless campaign against graft and corruption.”

She also wished the President had signed the long-delayed retirement package for Ombudsman personnel to stem the “exodus” of its employees.

“Because when a certain official or employee has acquired the necessary skills to run a government office, they are pirated by other agencies because of the retirement package,” she said.

Delay in cases

Morales said the antigraft body was continuously looking into reports that officials and personnel were deliberately causing delay in graft cases in exchange for bribes, which usually led to the dismissal of cases.

An internal affairs board was tasked with investigating and prosecuting officials accused of delaying cases in exchange for “parking fee,” she said.

“For as long as there are leads we will be investigating. [Complainants] must provide leads so that we will not be groping in the dark,” the Ombudsman said, adding that her campaign has led to the dismissal of at least two employees and an official, who were caught receiving bribes.

Lawyer Edna Herrera Batacan, one of the aspirants for Morales’ position, had mentioned the “parking fee” during an interview by the Judicial and Bar Council during its screening of candidates for Ombudsman.

According to Special Prosecutor Edilberto Sandoval, another aspirant, wealthy respondents paid the amount to delay the results of investigations until the cases against them were dismissed due to “inordinate” delays.

Batacan had admitted to being involved in a P50,000 payoff “just to get the status of the case” of one of her clients in the Office of the Ombudsman.

She justified this, saying: “You have to please your client. . . . They say to play along with their (Ombudsman’s) music . . . just so the clients’ [cases] would end.”

Party to corruption

Responding to Batacan’s statement, Morales last month said: “If you are party to corruption, you are corrupt yourself.”

Morales, 77, was appointed Ombudsman in 2011 by then President Benigno Aquino III after her retirement as associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Aquino, who did not hide his dislike for then Chief Justice Renato Corona, chose Morales to administer his oath of office as President in June 2010.

Morales and President Duterte clashed early this year over the insistence by the latter that Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang should be suspended for disclosing confidential information last year about the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the President’s alleged unexplained wealth.

The President threatened to file an impeachment complaint against Morales, an aunt of the President’s son-in-law, Manases Carpio.

Morales then said suspending Carandang was in violation of a Supreme Court ruling in 2014 that stated that a provision in the Ombudsman law that previously gave the President power to discipline the deputies of the Ombudsman was unconstitutional.

Duterte bank accounts

Carandang had told reporters that the President’s bank accounts, which showed discrepancies with his official statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, pointed to a potential violation of the law.

Morales told reporters on Tuesday she had no regrets about anything she had done over the past seven years as Ombudsman because all the cases her office had filed were based on evidence.

“Nothing was laced with bad faith,” she added.

“For now, this has been Conchita Carpio Morales, your Ombudsman, signing off.” —With a report from Julius N. Leonen