Crusaders’ self-sabotage

December 15,2017 - 11:42 PM

The self-appointed Volunteers against Crime and Corruption (VACC) took it upon themselves to submit to the Lower House an impeachment complaint against the country’s chief graft-buster, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.

Some members of the Lower House will soon endorse the complaint, said VACC counsel Jacinto Paras, a losing 2016 congressional candidate.

The group accused the Ombudsman of betraying public trust for several reasons including her deputy Arthur Carandang’s reported disclosure of presidential bank records documenting a P1 billion cash flow.

Whether this is impeachable, must be thoroughly interrogated. After all, the disclosure is already under an investigation from which Ombudsman Carpio-Morales inhibited herself.

This measure taken by the President’s fan club makes us wonder anew about his sincerity in upholding the spirit of transparent governance behind his very own freedom of information directive.

Are not the sums listed in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth open to scrutiny? Are not there exemptions in our bank secrecy and other laws that make the President’s financial dealings a matter for public knowledge?

The complainants also charge that the Ombudsman betrayed public trust for five other reasons including a perceived bias in favor of former president Benigno Aquino III, even though she indicted him over the deaths of 44 members of a special police force during a January 2015 anti-terrorist operation.

As of this writing, the Ombudsman has yet to issue a response pending reception of a copy of the complaint.

Let us recall the record of the woman these so-called anti-crime and anti-corruption crusaders are attacking.

In 2016, the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation gave her an award, the Asian equivalent to the Nobel Prize, for integrity and dignity that “restored the people’s faith in the rule of law.”

The text of the accolade underscored that “from 2011 to 2015, the conviction rate of cases handled by the Ombudsman before the Sandiganbayan rose from 33.3 percent to 74.5 percent.”

The foundation also feted Carpio-Morales for being “the first Ombudsman to use the waiver in the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (required of government officials and employees) as basis to secure bank records in impeaching one of the country’s highest officials.”

“Unfazed and quietly determined despite death threats, Morales, now 75 years old, does not sensationalize her efforts and always works within the law even as she pushes its limits. She is, quite simply, an inspiring public servant.”

This is the kind of woman self-proclaimed foes of crookedness itch to kick out of office.

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