OSG slams Morales’ ‘double standard’

Solicitor General Jose Calida. Presidential Photo

The Office of the Ombudsman is not a separate branch of government.

Solicitor General Jose Calida on Friday issued this scathing rebuttal to Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales’ insistence that Malacañang’s 90-day suspension order on Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang undermined the antigraft body’s independence.

Stopping short of calling her a hypocrite, Calida dismissed Morales’ claim that the directive disrespected a 2014 Supreme Court ruling as he reminded her that she previously ignored the so-called “Aguinaldo doctrine” in indicting former Makati City Mayor Junjun Binay for graft three years ago.

‘Look who’s talking?’

“When the Ombudsman skewered … Binay by finding him guilty of graft over the Makati parking building, did she respect the Aguinaldo doctrine, which was the prevailing jurisprudence at the time? No,” Calida said in a statement.

“Now, she chides the Office of the President for ordering the preventive suspension of … Carandang, which she characterized as ‘a clear affront to the Supreme Court.’ Look who’s talking?” he said.

The Aguinaldo doctrine, which the high court issued in 1959, clears elected public officials of administrative charges once they are reelected.

Binay had invoked the condonation rule in securing a temporary injunction from the Court of Appeals, which briefly prevented the Ombudsman from suspending him in connection with the alleged anomalies in the construction of Makati City Hall Building II.

56-year-old ruling

In November 2015, the high court dropped the 56-year-old ruling as they declared that such policy had no “legal authority” and that it was “rendered obsolete by the current legal regime.”

On Monday, Malacañang meted out Carandang’s suspension for grave misconduct after he allegedly made public Mr. Duterte’s supposed bank records.

In defending the order suspending Carandang, Calida said Section 2, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution did not include the deputy Ombudsman as among the public officials who may be unseated only through an impeachment.

Moreover, he said Section 20, Chapter 7 of the 1987 Administrative Code gave Mr. Duterte “residual powers” in disciplining government officers who are not impeachable.