‘Day of reckoning’ for Ombudsman is here, says complainant

MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE 2) The day of reckoning is here for Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.

This was what Former Akbayan partylist Representative Risa Hontiveros and Felipe Pestaño told the justice committee at the House of Representatives Wednesday as they appeared before the congressmen to present their complaint against Gutierrez whom they accused of betraying public trust and violating the Constitution for the “dismal and unconscionably low” performance of her office in convicting erring government officials, and her purported failure to correctly decide on the cases filed in connection with the Arroyo administration’s controversial deal with China’s ZTE Corp. on a national broadband network.

“Simula na ng araw ng paniningil [The day of reckoning is here],” Hontiveros said at the start of the impeachment proceedings against the Ombudsman, adding that Gutierrez has deprived people of the justice they were seeking by dismissing their cases.

The complaint filed by Hontiveros and Pestaño make up one of the two impeachment cases filed against Gutierrez.

Hontiveros filed a complaint following her arrest in a rally in March 2006, but this was thrown out by the Ombudsman, saying the former lawmaker was not arrested but merely taken into protective custody.

Pestano’s complaint stemmed from the Ombudsman alleged inaction on the case of the murder of his son, Navy Ensign Philip Pestano, in 1995.

Felipe Pestano said it pained him to know that they could not get justice for their son’s death from the Navy, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and from the Ombudsman.

In August 2010, two weeks after the Pestanos filed the impeachment complaint, Gutierrez dismissed the case they had filed.

Reports have said that on Sept. 27, 1995, the 24-year-old Pestaño committed suicide on board the naval vessel BRP Bacolod City where he was serving as cargo officer. However, his parents claimed he was murdered because he tried to expose the illegal activities in the vessel, including carrying the illegal cargo of P1 billion worth of shabu.

On 23 March 2010, Pestaño’s death was declared by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) as a “homicide,” saying the Philippine government failed to conduct an “impartial, effective, and timely” investigation.

Akbayan partylist Representative Arlene “Kaka” Bag-ao, who gave an overview of the first impeachment complaint said that Gutierrez’s “ignorance, incompetence” and “deliberate filing of defective evidence” caused the dismissal of many cases against government officials.

Citing Reports from the Transparency and Accountability Network, Bag-ao said there was “downward trend” in the performance of the Ombudsman that “paints a dim picture” for the country’s anti-corruption drive.

From the 55 percent conviction rate in 2007, the Office of the Ombudsman registered a conviction rate of only 14 percent in 2008.

Bag-ao also said that the 73 percent conviction rate boasted by Gutierrez in 2008 was “deceiving.”

“This tells us that the Ombudsman’s conviction rate not because of number of persons convicted but number of counts for which the accused was convicted,” Bag-ao said.

For instance, she said that the Ombudsman convicted a municipal mayor for 221 counts of charges.

The House justice committee hearings scheduled until Thursday will be “clarificatory” in which the complainants would be expected to present their witnesses and evidence.

Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas, chairman of the justice committee, opened the proceedings, which he described in an interview earlier Wednesday as a “historic moment for the country because this is the first time that an impeachment complaint has gone past sufficiency of the grounds.”

In a separate interview, Congressman Erin Tañada said the proceedings would be a “history for the House, a precedent setting since it is the farthest that any impeachment complaint got to.”

On Tuesday, members of the committee voted that the two complaints against Gutierrez have sufficient grounds, paving the way for the clarificatory hearings.

Tañada said that the farthest that an impeachment proceeding got was with the impeachment case against former Commission on Elections chairman Bernardo Pardo in the late 1990s but which was voted down. (report from Lira Dalangin-Fernandez, Inquirer.net)