Ombudsman Bello?

Herbie Gomez .

PRESIDENT Duterte would need to seriously think about who the next ombudsman would be if he is really serious about his anti-corruption campaign. He will be on the right track if he chooses a person who knows the job and who has a track record of being a responsible anti-corruption crusader. By “responsible,” I mean the next head of the Office of the Ombudsman should be mindful of the fact that the great power and authority it wields can have a huge effect on the lives of people. Being responsible means that the office should handle all its cases with care, and it should be motivated solely by the necessity of ridding the government of misfits.

The ombudsman is essentially an accuser or a prosecutor which is why it brings those accused of violating anti-graft laws to the Sandiganbayan. But at the same time, the ombudsman also functions like a “judge” only when it comes to administrative matters, a power similar to what the Civil Service Commission and government executives have been exercising. Yet it is not really a judge nor is it a court as we know it. Neither can its administrative decisions be seen as court verdicts because it is not a court. If it is, then there wouldn’t be a need for it to bring people it accuses of criminal offenses before the Sandiganbayan, the anti-graft court. The only time its rulings become final and executory, in the strictest sense, is when its decisions are unchallenged. And so, it is not surprising why its rulings are always challenged in court anywhere in the country because whenever it finds those it investigates “guilty,” their guilt is only as far as the Office of the Ombudsman is concerned, a conclusion that, if contested, may need to be validated or upheld or concurred by the courts just like the findings of the local prosecution offices or the Department of Justice or Office of the Solicitor General or the offices of mayors and governors.

Yet, an unfavorable decision by the ombudsman can unwittingly have a Scarlet-Letter effect on those it indicts or accuse formally of committing crimes and to some extent, may even unmake government careers. This is where care and responsibility should come in because the ombudsman cannot play god with reputations.

Neither should the Office of the Ombudsman be motivated by quota or “deliverables” promised to aid agencies. While the intention of the aid agencies is noble and their assistance to improve the anti-graft campaign by way of grants is always appreciated, focus should be on the quality of the cases — that is to say, on case build-up and on winning convictions — and not on the quantity of “deliverables” or on the number of cases it resolves and brings to the Sandiganbayan. The flaw here is whenever a foreign aid agency approves to fund a project, it goes without saying that it also wants to make sure that the money it agrees to shell out is spent well, and the spendings are justified. The problem is on how to gauge the performance of the recipient. In the ombudsman’s case, exactly how do the aid agencies measure the success of the ombudsman’s anti-graft campaign? My worry is if the standard of measurement is on the number of administrative cases resolved and criminal cases it filed with the Sandiganbayan rather than on the number of convictions. Wouldn’t that sacrifice quality at the expense of reputations of people who may end up being acquitted later on before the anti-graft court because it turned out that the Office of the Ombudsman had no case after all or did not do its work the way it should because it was only after of meeting the quota set by the aid agencies? Which brings me to the question: For every 100 cases that it brought the anti-graft court, how many convictions has the Office of the Ombudsman actually won? At the end of the day, that should be the only standard of measurement of success of the ombudsman’s anti-graft campaign and not the number of people wearing the Scarlet-Letter stigma upon their chests.

Going back to Duterte, he will be on the right track if he chooses a person with integrity and beyond reproach to replace Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales. It would also be very wise if he picks a non-politician.

On his “lalo na hindi babae” remark, someone should really tell Duterte to shut his filthy mouth.

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Media reports have it that Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III is one of those aspiring to become the next ombudsman.

That’s not a good idea given Bello’s public pronouncement in June 2017 that he wished he could volunteer to lawyer for Mayor Oscar Moreno who, everyone knows, has been having serious problems with the Office of the Ombudsman.

Speaking during the 119th Independence Day celebration here last year, Bello said, “Ayaw yata ng Ombudsman ng mabait at masipag… Kung libre lang ako, mo-volunteer gyud ko na imong abogado, ug mudaog gyud kita.”

Based on that pronouncement alone, I need not elaborate why I think it wouldn’t be wise for Duterte to even consider making Bello as the next ombudsman. For sure, even Moreno, a lawyer, knows it wouldn’t look good from whatever angle one looks at it.

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Here’s my take on the ouster of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno: Do we really need a law book in order to know what’s wrong in a situation where the accusers are also the judges? That’s what vigilantes do — they are the accusers, judges and executioners rolled into one. Their victims die because the vigilantes say so. Simply put, that was a day of infamy in the history of this country’s judiciary. Pastilan.