OSG blocks Ong’s petition on inciting to sedition case

The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) asked a Manila court yesterday to dismiss the petition filed by former National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) deputy director Samuel Ong for being "moot and academic."

Ong had asked Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 33 Judge Reynaldo Ros late last month not to allow the state prosecutor, which is under the Department of Justice, to conduct the preliminary investigation of inciting to sedition charges against him. Ong claimed the outcome would be prejudiced as he questioned the DOJ’s impartiality.

OSG lawyer John Emmanuel Madamba, representing Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez and Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño, then asked Ros to dismiss Ong’s petition since they already filed the case before the Makati City Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC) on July 5.

"The MTC now has jurisdiction to entertain any questions of irregularity in the conduct of preliminary investigation. The petition is now moot and academic. The petition is an exercise in futility," Madamba said.

He added that they are not depriving Ong of his right to due process and pointed out that they want the Makati court to conduct the preliminary investigation and to move for Zuño’s inhibition.

Ong’s lawyers opposed the OSG’s request to dismiss their client’s petition, claiming the government is curtailing his right to free expression.

At the end of the hearing, Ros required both sides to submit their legal arguments within five days on whether the Manila court should continue to hear the preliminary investigation, considering recent developments. He set the next hearing on July 15.

But one of Ong’s lawyers, Jaime Maria Flores II, said that as of yesterday morning they have not yet received a copy of the resolution issued by State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco that reportedly ordered the filing of inciting to sedition charges against the former NBI intelligence chief.

Flores said they will immediately seek to quash the case filed at the Makati court, and for their case in the Manila court to continue "because we want to have an impartial, unbiased and fair preliminary investigation to be conducted by an independent body, not the DOJ, which has already shown their bias, their partiality, their prejudgment" of the results of the investigation.