MERCI IMPEACHMENT TRIAL LIKELY A 2013 CANDIDACY SPRINGBOARD - SUAREZ
MANILA, APRIL 16, 2011 (MANILA TIMES) By Llanesca T. Panti, Reporter - THE looming impeachment trial of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is highly likely to be used by lawmaker-prosecutors and senator-judges as a launch pad for their candidacy in the 2013 elections, a leader of the House of Representatives said on Thursday.
Senior Deputy Minority Leader Danilo Suarez made the statement during the weekly Serye news forum, saying that House and Senate members cannot afford to shy away from the huge exposure that the historic impeachment trial will bring to their political ambitions.
"Let's us face it. Most of them are running for reelection in 2013. Can you refuse the public exposure with a 75 percent rating? It is a free ride," he told reporters.
Suarez, a member of the Lakas-Kampi-Christian Muslim Democrats, earlier said that the impeachment trial of Gutierrez will not be finished until the Ombudsman's scheduled retirement in December 2010 because of the many cases lodged against Gutierrez.
The Ombudsman is facing six Articles of Impeachment namely her inaction on the P728-million fertilizer fund scam and on the P1.3-billion Mega Pacific deal on election automation, the absence of a case against former police comptroller Eliseo dela Paz who tried to smuggle money from Russia, the exclusion of former President Gloria Arroyo and her husband from charges over the $330-million broadband project, the death of Navy Ensign Pestaño Philip and the low conviction rate of the Office of the Ombudsman.
"It is human nature [to want to be in the limelight]. If I will be given a chance [at such exposure] in the plenary, of course, I'll take it," Suarez said.
Deputy Majority Leader Miro Quimbo of Marikina City (Metro Manila) disagreed.
Quimbo, alongside Rep. Arlene Bag-ao of Akbayan party-list, will be prosecuting Gutierrez to convict the Ombudsman of betrayal of public trust.
"As far as the House contingent is concerned, our orders are to prosecute the case with greatest dispatch and in the shortest time possible. It is going to be contrary to our interest to prolong it," Quimbo said in a text message to The Manila Times.
A member of the Liberal Party of President Benigno Aquino 3rd, he noted that while the House prosecution panel will be taken away from legislative and constituency work during the trial, the impeachment process is a constitutional mandate that cannot be simply time-bound.
"We will require the time that is needed to present sufficient evidence to convict the Ombudsman. That is our only timeline," added Quimbo, the Home Development Mutual Fund president and its chief executive officer during the Arroyo administration.
The complainants view Gutierrez as the one who was shielding now Rep. Gloria Arroyo of Pampanga from criminal liabilities in connection with allegedly corrupt deals that happened during her administration because the former President's husband Jose Miguel Arroyo was Gutierrez's classmate at the Ateneo de Manila University Law School.
Rep. Elpidio Barzaga of Cavite, who will prosecute Gutierrez in the automation deal together with Rep. Magtanggol Gunigundo of Valenzuela City (Metro Manila), backed up Quimbo's statements.
"That [long trial] may well be the case. But the Senate cannot devote all of its time to the trial of the case. Apart from the annual budget bill that Congress has to pass, there are at least 23 high priority pills supposedly for immediate passage," Barzaga told the Manila Times in a separate text message.
The impeachment trial, which had been expected to start when Congress resumes session on May 9, will not happen.
Instead, the trial proper will begin on the last week of May, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said also on Thursday.
Enrile added that the impeachment trial's decision on the Articles of Impeachment will be final and executory and no motion for reconsideration can be filed before any court of the land because they are on equal footing with other branches of the government.
But if Gutierrez resigned during the trial, the proceedings would automatically stop because the purpose of impeachment is to remove the accused official from public office. With report from Sammy Martin
FROM THE PHILIPPINE STAR
No delay in Merci trial - JPE By Marvin Sy (The Philippine Star) Updated April 15, 2011 12:00 AM
Manila, Philippines - Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile dispelled yesterday speculations that the impeachment trial of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez could be delayed or long drawn out, saying he expects the process to be concluded within the year.
Enrile told a Senate forum that barring unforeseen hitches, he does not see the trial lasting until the end of Gutierrez's term next year because he would ensure that the case is disposed of within a reasonable time.
"That (long trial) will be, I think, unacceptable to the people… I, for one, am not ready to accept that we could not dispose of this case within a reasonable time," said Enrile, who will serve as presiding officer of the impeachment trial.
Asked if the trial will end before yearend, Enrile said that this is possible and "maybe even shorter."
Enrile said the pace of the proceedings would depend on the skills of the prosecution in making their case against Gutierrez.
The prosecution panel is composed of 11 members of the House of Representatives designated to handle the case against the Ombudsman.
Concerns have been raised that the trial could be long drawn because the rules on impeachment approved by the Senate require that all six articles of impeachment must be heard before judgment is made on each article.
In order to be acquitted of the charges, the Ombudsman must be found not guilty on all six articles.
Conviction, on the other hand, would require the determination of guilt in only one article of impeachment.
Sen. Francis Pangilinan has called for an amendment of the rules so that the senator-judges would be able to immediately place their vote on each of the articles of impeachment instead of hearing all six first.
Pangilinan said that this would speed up the trial process, considering that guilt has to be found on only one article of impeachment to remove the Ombudsman from office.
While it is still possible to amend the rules when Congress resumes session on May 9, Enrile said that he would rather stick to the current rules in order to save time.
"We have already adopted the rules. The rules have been published. I would suggest to my colleagues that if there is any flaw in the rules, which I think there is none, then we should forgo that unless it becomes clearly necessary in the course of the hearing," Enrile said.
"Because if we're going to open on May 9 and the first matter that we will discuss is to amend the rules, that will entail a debate among the members of the Senate and it might take time," he added.
There have also been calls for the prosecution to summon former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the trial as a witness, which Enrile said could be allowed if justified.
"Whether it's a trial of the former president or not, for as long as they can justify the appearance, then maybe we will approve it. If they can't justify it, I'll deny it," Enrile said.
However, he said that he would not allow any party to use the proceedings to embarrass people, including the former president.
Enrile also warned his colleagues in the Senate as well as the members of the prosecution to abide by the rule against speaking of the merits of the case in public.
He said that the senators and congressmen who violate the rule could be asked to inhibit themselves from the trial by the defense or other parties.
A member of the House prosecution panel, Rep. Neri Colmenares of the party-list group Bayan Muna, said that Ombudsman Gutierrez acted "too little, too late" in filing the first case arising from the P728-million fertilizer scam in 2004.
"The Ombudsman is still trying to obscure the fact that she sat on the case even if her office was pampered with inordinately high budget, the highest ever among all Ombudsmen," said Colmenares.
He was reacting to the filing by the Ombudsman's office on Wednesday of charges against former Sorsogon Gov. Raul Lee and two others for allegedly defrauding the government of more than P100,000 in fertilizer funds.
The accused were found to have bought liquid fertilizer from Feshan Corp. at a huge overprice.
A Senate inquiry had identified Feshan as the supplier of many congressmen and local officials who received millions in fertilizer funds from the Arroyo administration shortly before the 2004 presidential elections.
The case against Lee is the first to be filed in connection with the scam. No charges have been filed against former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn "Jocjoc" Bolante, whom the Senate had tagged as the brains behind the irregularity, and other officials, including former agriculture secretary Luis Lorenzo.
Colmenares said Gutierrez had enough people and budget to act expeditiously on the fertilizer scam and other irregularities brought to her attention.
"President Arroyo gave her all the funds she wanted, increasing her P650-million budget in 2005 to a staggering P1.8 billion in 2009," he said.
He said the Ombudsman's workforce grew from 987 in 2003 to 2,175 in 2010.
"It is clear as daylight that the Ombudsman had the means, people and resources to pursue the case of the fertilizer fund scam in the most expeditious way possible, but it did not happen," he stressed.
During the House justice committee's impeachment hearings, former Solicitor General Frank Chavez, who had filed a complaint against Bolante and others in 2005 with the Ombudsman's office, said Gutierrez has "perfected the art of doing nothing."
He claimed that six years after he filed his complaint, the Ombudsman has not required the respondents to file their counter-affidavits.
Party-list Rep. Sherwin Tugna of Citizens' Battle Against Corruption, meanwhile, said the case against Lee was "good enough."
"People say it is only a knee-jerk reaction of the Ombudsman to her impeachment, but it's good enough," Tugna said.
He said the case is a "morale booster to the campaigners against corruption, especially that the scam affected many poor Filipinos, mostly farmers."
At least, it shows that "things are moving, which is very encouraging," he added.
Bill to punish erring prosecutors
Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez filed a bill seeking to penalize unscrupulous prosecutors and other officials for entering into plea bargain agreements with suspects that are disadvantageous to the government.
Rodriguez filed House Bill 4435 or the Plea Bargaining Act of 2011 in a bid to "ensure that plea bargaining is used in order that justice be served and not for the benefit of the accused and the persons he is trying to protect."
"This bill seeks to establish a formal policy on plea bargaining and provide guidelines, including the imposition of sanction for violation thereof in order to ensure that the concept of plea bargaining is not abused and misused for graft and corrupt practices," Rodriguez said.
"Recent experience has shown that plea bargaining can also be used by unscrupulous prosecutors and high-ranking officers of the government tasked to go after criminals to get the accused off on a lesser offense to the detriment of the country and the public," he said.
The bill was filed as the administration seeks to nullify the plea bargain agreement entered into by the Office of the Ombudsman and the camp of former military comptroller Carlos Garcia, where the deal seeks to downgrade the original charge of plunder to indirect bribery.
The bill also seeks to exclude heinous crimes, including bribery, destructive arson, infanticide, kidnapping or serious illegal detention, murder, robbery with violence, and carjacking, as subject to any plea bargain deal.
The bill seeks to exclude suspects accused of plunder, treason, piracy in general and mutiny on the high seas or in Philippine waters, as well as violations of the Comprehensive Anti-Drug Acts, from entering into any plea bargain deals.
The measure imposes a penalty of imprisonment ranging from six years to 12 years and a fine of at least P100,000 to as much as P500,000 to officials who forge plea bargain deals that are detrimental to the country.
Rodriguez said plea bargain agreements should be imbued with public interest and in the interest of justice. With Jess Diaz, Paolo Romero
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