Conchita Carpio Morales and her deputy, Melchor Arthur Carandang —INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
The Ombudsman has initiated its own internal probe against Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang and Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Paul Elmer Clemente.
Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales said this was meant to assert the Ombudsman’s exclusive disciplinary powers over its own officials—rejecting the Office of the President’s jurisdiction on the complaints brought by lawyer Manuelito Luna.
“[This is] to show that indeed it is the Office of the Ombudsman that has jurisdiction over this case,” Morales told reporters at the sidelines of the Joint Forum on Justice and Integrity by the Office of the Ombudsman and the International Development Law Organization on Tuesday evening.
The investigation by the Internal Affairs Board, chaired by Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Gerard Mosquera, was motu proprio, or initiated on the Ombudsman’s own impulse without waiting for a formal complaint.
Morales said Carandang and Clemente may face “administrative [liabilities] and also criminal if called for.”
“Ini-investigate na namin sila (We are investigating them). If there’s any liability, we fault them if there is. If there’s none, then, sorry,” she said.
The Office of the President suspended Carandang last Jan. 29 for administrative offenses for disclosing President Duterte’s alleged bank records in announcing the Ombudsman’s investigation on hidden wealth accusations.
Morales, however, said on Jan. 31 that the Ombudsman would “not enforce” the Palace’s “patently unconstitutional” sanction.
This was because the OP disregarded the Supreme Court’s Jan. 28, 2014 ruling, which declared unconstitutional the Ombudsman Act’s provision that gave the OP disciplinary powers over the government watchdog’s deputies.
Aside from filing the complaint against Carandang, Luna also asked the OP to sanction Clemente on behalf of Negros Oriental Governor Roel Degamo.
Degamo, through Luna, questioned Clemente’s separate decisions to dismiss him from office over the continued use of a portion of P480.7 million in revoked calamity funds and over the allegedly unauthorized release of P10-million intelligence funds.
Sought for comment, Luna said in a text message: “Is she serious? Well, it may be too late for her to do that. She should have done it way back then.”
Morales’ seven-year term will end on July 26, after a year of being at loggerheads with President Duterte, to whom she is related by affinity (her nephew Mans Carpio is presidential daughter Sara Duterte’s husband).