Senate committee report boosts Ombudsman impeach bid—solons

MANILA, Philippines – Lawmakers who want Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez impeached said their case has been bolstered by the Senate blue ribbon committee findings that recommended her removal from the post for entering into a plea bargain deal with former military comptroller Carlos Garcia.

They said they were studying the possibility of including the plea bargain agreement as part of the evidence to pin down Gutierrez for betrayal of public trust once the case reaches trial in the Senate.

“It could be an evidence of fraud,” Ilocos Norte Representative Rodolfo Farinas, vice chairman of the justice committee, said in a phone interview.

The Senate panel recommended Gutierrez’s impeachment and the removal of four state prosecutors for entering into a plea bargain agreement with Garcia.

The recommendations were contained in a partial report released Thursday and was signed by 14 senators.

Farinas and Deputy Speaker and Quezon Representative Lorenzo Tanada III, however, said that the Garcia case could no longer be part of the charges in the present complaints.

Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas Jr., chairman of the justice committee that conducted the hearings on the impeachment, said the Senate findings “will strengthen the impeachment case … as it involves the same constitutional ground of betrayal of public trust.”

Tupas noted that one of the allegations to be included in the committee report containing the Articles of Impeachment would be the Office of the Ombudsman’s dismal conviction rate that included Gutierrez’s alleged “incompetence in entering into plea bargain agreements since 2008.”

Bayan Muna partylist Representative Teddy Casino, one of the endorsers of the complaint, said his group was open to the possibility of including the plea bargain deal as basis to impeach the Ombudsman.

“But this will have to be studied carefully by the impeachment legal team,” he said in a text message.

Fellow Bayan Muna partylist Representative Neri Colmenares said the Senate findings were a welcome development as this supported allegations she was doing her job.

Akbayan partylist Representative Arlene “Kaka” Bag-ao, another endorser of the impeachment complaint, said the Senate findings not only provided credence to the impeachment complaint but “provides independent proof that our grounds for impeachment are not baseless and isolated and [that] her violations continue to this day.”

Tanada said the plea bargain deal could be a subject of another complaint if Gutierrez was not impeached in the Senate. But he said that the next complaint could be filed in August, because of the one year ban on filing a complaint against an impeachable official.