Ombudsman may refile graft cases if SC redefines ‘inordinate delay’
Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales. File photo by JOAN BONDOC / Philippine Daily Inquirer
Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales said on Tuesday that nothing can stop the anti-graft office from refiling corruption cases earlier dismissed by the Sandiganbayan if the Supreme Court would grant its request to redefine the “inordinate delay” doctrine.
Morales expressed alarm at the 26 cases dismissed by the Sandiganbayan due to the alleged unreasonable delay of the Office of the Ombudsman in investigating the cases, which she said had become a convenient excuse and legal tactic of accused public officials to get away with corruption.
READ: Ombudsman ‘indulges in self-pity’ over some dismissed cases
Morales said the Office of the Ombudsman first asked to the Supreme Court to redefine the inordinate delay doctrine in its 2016 petition questioning the Sandiganbayan’s dismissal of the graft case of Winston Garcia, former president of the Government Security Insurance System (GSIS), due to inordinate delay.
“At the time, we thought the trial court would be more understanding of the reasons behind the delay,” Morales said. “But when the trend was so alarming, we thought that we should use that case as a vehicle to request for the Supreme Court to revisit the inordinate doctrine.”
The “last straw,” Morales said, was the 26 criminal cases dismissed by new Sandiganbayan justices due to inordinate delay this year alone.
Article continues after this advertisementREAD: Delayed? Ombudsman tells courts to ‘mirror themselves’
“When we saw early this year, especially when the new justices of the Sandiganbayan kept on dismissing case due to inordinate delay and everyone invoking inordinate delay, that to us was the last straw,” Morales said.
Article continues after this advertisementShe said if the Supreme Court would rule in favor of the Office of the Ombudsman to shorten the period of alleged delay, her office could refile the dismissed corruption cases without committing double jeopardy.
“The cases were dismissed even before any arraignment has been held,” she explained. “So nothing would prevent us from refiling the case if need be.”
READ: Define ‘inordinate delay,’ Ombudsman asks SC
The Sandiganbayan has dismissed cases which took the Ombudsman years to file before the anti-graft court, for violation of the accused’s constitutional right to a speedy disposition of case.
The inordinate delay doctrine is a jurisprudence set by the Supreme Court.
The anti-graft court usually accounts for the period starting from the filing of complaint, the fact-finding, the preliminary investigation, until the filing of complaint.
But Morales said the period of investigation should only cover the preliminary stage, during which respondents would already asked to file their counter-affidavits to the complaints filed against them.
She noted that the fact-finding should not be “tucked” in the computation because there are cases the accused are not even made aware that the Office of the Ombudsman is already conducting a fact-finding investigation.
Morales admitted that the lack of personnel to speed up the fact-finding and preliminary investigation might have contributed to the number of years the Office of the Ombudsman took to conclude its probe on corruption complaints.
“But I’d rather have 10 lawyers, than 100, who are competent and efficient and not indolent, than 100 who are inefficient, lazy, recidivist as far as coming to the office is concerned,” Morales said.
She said she took pride at the disposal rate of the Office of Ombudsman since her appointment in 2011.
The office tackled 24,000 cases Morales inherited in 2011, on top of the 30,000 cases filed during her term, for a total of 54,000 cases as of December 2016.
This case load has been reduced to 6,200 already, for a case disposal rate of around 42 to 44 cases a day.
This disposal rate, however, did not mean the Ombudsman was “reckless” in disposing of complaints for filing before the Sandiganbayan, Morales said.
“We cannot be reckless,” she said. “We know how difficult it is to be indicted in court. So we see to it that we are lauded with ammunitions to present and defend our case.”
Morales said the office was only fighting for its right to prosecute, a right that should be balanced with the accused”s right for speedy disposition of cases.
“We have to fight for our cause,” she said. “The accused has the right to speedy disposition of cases, in same manner the state has also the right to present evidence in order to support its cause… Hindi pwedeng one-way traffic lang (It cannot be one-way traffic only),”
Following are the respondents in some of the graft cases dismissed by the Sandiganbayan due to inordinate delay:
- Zamboanga Del Sur Rep. Aurora Cerilles
- Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. and Vice Mayor Nova Princess Parojinog
- Rep. Rene Relampagos, former Bohol governor, and incumbent Bohol Gov. Edgardo Chatto
- former GSIS President Winston Garcia
Also dismissed for the same reason were the fertilizer fund scam cases of former Sen. Lito Lapid and Masbate Gov. Antonio Kho, among others./rga
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