For months, the nation’s attention has been fixated on the move by the new administration to oust via impeachment Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez with a view to taking down a formidable hindrance to President Noynoy Aquino’s campaign promise of holding accountable corrupt public officials in high office. An earlier attempt to impeach the Ombudsman during the Arroyo administration did not gain any traction in the House of Representatives, the agency with the sole power to initiate the proceeding, dominated then by Arroyo party mates.
The equation began to change almost immediately upon the election of Aquino because of political realignment in the House, something that is not out of the ordinary in Philippine politics.
And then within two months of the May 2010 presidential election, a new impeachment complaint was filed against Gutierrez, followed by another in August 2010.
On March 22, 2011, the House voting 210 to 46 impeached (indicted) Gutierrez. Among the charges: unreasonable failure of the Ombudsman to take prompt and immediate action on corruption complaints filed against various public officials, including former president Arroyo and her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo.
On the other hand, on April 15, 2011, the Bureau of Internal Revenue lodged before the Department of Justice a complaint for tax evasion against Arroyo’s son, Congressman Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo and wife Angela.
The BIR claims the couple is liable for P73.85 million in tax deficiency accumulated from 2004 to 2009.
On April 25, 2011, former Solicitor General Francisco Chavez seemingly in sync with the clambering crusade for accountability decided to bypass the Office of the Ombudsman and instead filed plunder charges before the Department of Justice against Arroyo and other officials of her administration for diversion and/or misuse of Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) funds in 2003 and 2004.
Aside from plunder, Arroyo and the other officials were also charged before the justice department with qualified theft, violation of the Omnibus Election Code, violation of Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, and the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
The stage has now been set for public reckoning when on May 9 the Senate is supposed to convene as an impeachment court to try the Ombudsman, all with anticipation the impeachment proceeding actually going beyond its objective of ousting Gutierrez by potentially giving the nation a firsthand look of what could be in store for Arroyo and spouse in terms of holding them accountable for their alleged crimes while in power.
And then a premature anticlimax ensued (Or was woven into the plot?). Gutierrez, either worried about a reduced pension or still hoping to return to government service, quit her post effective three days before the Senate convening. For all the gesture of magnanimity of merciful Merci that might have taken shape during the Holy Week, everyone seems grateful, relieved or welcomes the turn of events, from the militant organization Bayan, one of the impeachment complainants, and civil society group Black and White Movement to Senate President Enrile, Vice President Binay, and President Aquino himself, and even the vocal House Justice Committee Chair and lead impeachment prosecutor Neil Tupas, Jr., who theretofore had been all geared up to throw the book at the once nervy Ombudsman.
But is it constitutionally and politically correct to talk of the impeachment trial of the Ombudsman in the past tense because she has opted to absorb the ultimate punishment of removal by voluntarily quitting? If yes, is that full accountability in a hoped-for cathartic sense for the impeachable offense of betrayal of public trust?
One unlikely dissenter, a very disappointed supporter of the Ombudsman in fact, is House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman who thinks that her resignation “is an admission of culpability,” or a plea of guilty, in other words. This is a very plausible position by the house minority leader because whether the route taken is resignation or a guilty plea, the end result is the same: the capital punishment of removal.
Now, Gutierrez recklessly gave herself away, and her sinister and selfish intention to boot, by stating in her column in Business Mirror the following: “Because if I persist in fighting the charges levelled against me and I lose, I lose not only my retirement benefits, the opportunity to again serve government in equally dignified but less taxing capacities, but will also reap the shame of being the first Ombudsman to have been forcibly removed from office.” Hence, to the very end of her unceremonious career as the Ombudsman she was given to nickel and dime the Republic. To grant her the sweet privilege (not to speak of the security detail that the President reportedly promised her) is politically quite inconsistent with the President’s anti-corruption campaign in the first place and in terms of fulfilling “accountability” certainly leaves the nation at the shorter end of the (plea) bargain again.
But constitutionally (let’s all read carefully please the Constitution once more), the Senate is supposed to retain jurisdiction of the impeachment trial, the resignation of the impeached Ombudsman notwithstanding. The reason for this is that aside from the matter of “removal from office,” a foregone one because of the resignation, the Senate pursuant to Article XI, Section 3 (7), clearly retains the power to disqualify the impeached official “to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines.” The impeachment trial shall not therefore end because the indicted official chooses to end it for her own convenience.
Full accountability demands that if the impeached official is culpable for betrayal of public trust, she is entitled to no quarter if only as matter of concrete exemplification but shall be removed from public office AND disqualified forever to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines. There is no other more important business today in the Philippines, save perhaps the creation of in-country employment opportunities for Filipinos, than the matter of inculcating a culture of accountability (rather than countenancing impunity) to all, without which, any anti-corruption campaign, now or in the future, could only be an empty shibboleth.
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The Ombudsman already resigned and therefore what further judicial urgency is left for one already removed?
Primer,
I am partial to people-powered measures when it comes to transforming our country. And by “people” I mean not just run-of-the-mill Filipinos but the political and economic elites as well. In a sense, mine is an aspiration to a coming together where all, driven by a deep sense of country, decide to hold a stake to form the Philippine good society.
In large-scale democratic societies, as our country of 90 million souls, we are inevitably given to simplifying the democratic process through the ideal of representative government. This is great if only the governed is able to keep effective control of the governors to whom the powers of governance are entrusted. The control process that we are all familiar with is of course through elections that are set to occur regularly. Election is supposed to be a day of reckoning where the sovereign people vetting the record of performance of the elected governors, decide who are to be kept or let go, or if other individuals who have fresh or different ideas are worth being given a chance to take the reins. On the other hand, we also set standards, often by law enacted by our elected representatives, for the conduct of the other officials who are non-elected but equally entrusted with the business of governance in lieu of subjecting them to control through the election process.
The democratic design is really great until we realize that if we are not watchful or in fact complacent, people we entrusted with power will betray the trust either because they have become too powerful to take the design for granted, or owing to our complacency or simply lack of concern, even the well-meaning ones are tempted to tamper with it.
The powerful, because they have the wherewithal, can make things look like that they are compliant with the democratic design. This includes the use of vast resources to distort reality that are too difficult to counter on the part of those not so endowed with the same resources. Corruption (which is distortion of the normal design) is at times legitimated because opposition to it is simply ineffective (for instance, certain legislations pampering our economic elites that have been in place forever are legitimated distortions).
The rest who are resource-deficient may be without power now but it doesn’t mean they are all unconcerned, supine or dumb. Only of recent, we have seen examples of Filipinos of great moral courage who have come to the open or taken the dangerous route to speak or whistle truth to power. They are just a handful now, which is a sad state of the level civic-spiritedness of Filipinos in general that seems to come by only in fits and starts. But through “education” this can change. And by education I refer to not just formal, i.e., inculcating anti-corruption ethos in the school curriculum, but through the counter-medium of television politics (which is to be distinguished from the phenomenon of reality TV shows).
Now, if everyone is concerned about the cost of public impeachment trial of the Anti-Corruption Czar (the Ombudsman, I mean) for grand corruption, think of the billions (nearly 13 per cent of the national budget) that are lost to graft and corruption annually. I believe this simple cost/benefits analysis alone makes good sense.
What further judicial urgency is left for (the Ombudsman) already removed” by voluntarily resigning?
At this time, the urgency (and importance) of continuing with impeachment trial of the Ombudsman despite her resignation is rather political than judicial. It is political because it is related to what’s being suggested here of constituting the people themselves as a force in society in the anti-corruption efforts. And one opportune way of doing it is through living room rather than chamber politics. jcc’s statement that “political process is more transparent than judicial process” rings true.
I have equated the reason for endorsing the clamor for the televised trial of the Maguindanao massacre to the impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada in this fashion:
President Noynoy Aquino has said it better in his letter to the Supreme Court requesting for a live coverage of the trial pertaining to the heinous massacre: it will be “educational for the rest of the people to find out what actually transpired, the reasons behind the atrocity, and what steps should be done to prevent the same from happening again.”
You were saying ABE that the resignation was meant to secure her pension and other privileges as a resigned/retired government official? – Does not resignation waived all those retirement benefits?
jcc, what I know is that resignation is not removal for cause so Gutierrez is entitled to full retirement benefits if the required length of government service is met.
There can be said a pattern of ‘self-inflicted injury’.
A defense secretary chose to end his life than be humiliated by a fellow officer many times his junior.
Now, an ombudsman chose to resign than be ‘ganged up’ by the Old Boys Club with axe to grind against her.
Still, we haven’t really heard of those other agency heads who have already been replaced because of this purging process.
When the order of business is curbing corruption, it appears that there is no power superior to that of the President, after all.
Pilipinas should be very glad that Merci has resigned… then the construct of 1987 Constitution can be followed with Noynoy appointing his choice-of-Ombudsman who will then share the priorities and do the bidding of Malakanyang. What more can Noynoy want other than to follow the footsteps of
— Makoy—his mother?UP nn grad… you are an idiot equating Marcos to Pnoy. Is this why the UP MASCOT is a PARROT? Because you guys parrot without thinking.