President Rodrigo Duterte’s challenge to both Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales to resign and allow themselves to be investigated may at first glance be something that should be taken with a ton of salt considering the President’s propensity to issue threats and hurl insults whenever he pleases.
That he ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to investigate corruption in the Ombudsman and threatened to arrest Morales should she fail to submit to said investigation is another matter altogether.
It wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for Congress to supplement the NBI’s investigation with their own in-house committee inquiry.
All to please President Duterte who’s threatening to go after Deputy Ombudsman Arthur Carandang, who is spearheading the Ombudsman investigation.
That Morales inhibited herself from the inquiry by virtue of her ties with lawyer Mans Carpio, husband of Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte, may give Duterte’s followers pause should they accuse her of being biased against the President.
Still, President Duterte should have cause for worry since the papers being used by the Ombudsman are supposedly not cleared by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).
The council denied issuing the President’s bank records, but only time will tell whether or not the Ombudsman inquiry will force the council to disclose the presidential family’s bank records.
In any case, the President’s challenge is yet another disturbing indicator about the enmity between the incumbent administration and the country’s existing institutions that are the designated vanguards of democracy as enshrined in the Constitution.
Until Morales and Sereno are visibly handcuffed and taken to prison, however, Filipinos can also view this as just another clash of wills that is to be expected in any democracy where every branch of government gets to speak their minds on policies and issues affecting governance.
At the heart of this confrontation is the President’s integrity and honesty in declaring his actual net worth upon his assumption to office. With yet another crack at impeachment still several months ahead, President Duterte isn’t going away anytime soon.
Since Sereno is facing impeachment anyway, the President’s challenge to resign is out of the question. And again, Congress can only do so much that it cannot afford to hold another impeachment for Morales.
The President can downplay the Ombudsman investigation all he wants and the inquiry will be a long, drawn-out process that the public, except the President’s most ardent critics, may not have the energy to monitor.
We hope that the Ombudsman stays the course and lets the truth surface in order to show once and for all who is hiding what and who is the one lying to the Filipino people.
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