Senate committee wants special prosecutor fired

MANILA, Philippines -  The Senate Blue Ribbon committee is recommending the filing of charges against Special State Prosecutor Wendell Barreras-Sulit for betrayal of public trust in connection with the plea bargaining agreement forged with former military comptroller Carlos Garcia.

The Blue Ribbon’s recommendation is aimed at Sulit’s ouster as special prosecutor, since betrayal of public trust is a serious offense.

“The Office of the Special Prosecutor betrayed public trust by entering into the Garcia plea bargaining agreement. There was betrayal of public trust through breach of official duty,” a portion of the draft of the Blue Ribbon committee’s findings declared.

The 65-page report also recommended that Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez be “held accountable for non-feasance.”

“Whether or not the laws that hold the Ombudsman and Office of the Special Prosecutor accountable are sufficient, who will ‘Guard the Guardians?’” the report read.

Because of Gutierrez’s stance, the Blue Ribbon is also recommending for the House of Representatives to submit to the Senate the articles of impeachment against Gutierrez at the soonest time possible.

Nine senators have signed the partial report of the Blue Ribbon committee which investigated the questionable agreement and the massive corruption in the military.

Blue Ribbon chairman Sen. Teofisto Guingona III confirmed that he now has a majority of senators who have concurred with the recommendation that Sulit be cited for betrayal of public trust and to have the Ombudsman held accountable for the same.

Guingona refused to provide details of the report pending his formal press conference today at the Senate.

“It’s being routed… I have the majority. Nine is the majority and I have nine (signatures),” he said.

Guingona said his partial report does not cover the liabilities of former AFP comptroller Jacinto Ligot and other military officers who were tagged by whistle-blower former budget officer Col. George Rabusa in the multi-million cash conversion at the AFP.

The committee report also comes at a time when the House of Representatives is about to vote on the impeachment case against Gutierrez before plenary next week and after President Aquino reportedly gave marching orders to the Liberal Party congressmen to vote in favor of her impeachment.

Guingona is Aquino’s ally in the Liberal Party.

Prosecutorial negligence

In past hearings, senators have repeatedly hit Gutierrez and Sulit over the lopsided plea bargaining agreement with Garcia.

Another LP stalwart, Sen. Franklin Drilon, had scored Gutierrez and Sulit for lacking delicadeza as they have ignored calls for them to resign from their posts.

He assailed Gutierrez and Sulit for what he saw as a “consistent pattern of covering up” the transactions that could have expanded the filing of graft charges against the two former comptrollers of the Armed Forces.

Drilon had also recommended that the special prosecutors be charged for graft.

He said that the calls for resignation have fallen on deaf ears since the Ombudsman and the special prosecutors have insisted in past Senate hearings that they have been doing their job in getting Garcia to agree with the plea bargain and in pursuing the forfeiture case against Ligot.

Ligot, comptroller during the time of the late Defense secretary Angelo Reyes, had allegedly amassed about P740 million in dollar and peso deposits but he only has a forfeiture case pending before the Sandiganbayan.

Ligot’s successor, Garcia, was able to strike a plea bargaining agreement with the government special prosecutors on a plunder charge that was reduced to direct bribery, which paved the way for him to be freed on bail.

Garcia served as AFP comptroller for about four years during the terms of former AFP chiefs Diomedio Villanueva, Roy Cimatu and Efren Abu, who occupied the top military post courtesy of the revolving door policy of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Drilon said the denials of Sulit in one of the Senate hearings that they received the report from the Anti-Money Laundering Council about Ligot’s huge bank accounts already reveal a conspiracy to cover up their misdeeds, a seeming pattern that emerged in the Senate hearings.

In Garcia’s case, the Ombudsman and special prosecutors opted to strike a plea bargain agreement which allowed Garcia to merely return about half of the P300 million in accounts and properties to the government rather than recover all his alleged ill-gotten wealth mentioned in the plunder case.

Review rules

In light of recent developments, Drilon has asked the Commission on Appointments to review its rules in order to improve the process of looking into the fitness and integrity of appointees of the President.

Admitting that there were lapses by the CA in the past, particularly when Ligot and Garcia’s promotions were confirmed, Drilon said that there must be some changes made in the practices of the commission so that the nominees are subjected to closer scrutiny.

“We have, to a certain extent, failed in our duty to check on the qualification and fitness of the nominees that we examine in the CA, not only in the Armed Forces but likewise in the civilian sector of our government, including the constitutional agencies,” Drilon said.

Drilon noted that the practice in the CA, even during the years when he was its chairman, was that questions about the integrity of the appointees were raised primarily when there were individuals challenging the appointments of the President.

“You cannot help but come to the question: what were we doing all this time? There must have been laxity, I must admit. I was in the CA for the past 13 years, almost half of which I was chairman and I must admit that the process of examining the nominees’ fitness and qualification can stand improvement,” Drilon said.

Drilon said that at the very least, the CA secretariat should be able to look into the cases filed against the appointees by the Office of the Ombudsman and use the evidence presented there as part of the process of evaluating the fitness and qualification of a candidate.

Meanwhile, the CA confirmed yesterday the promotion of 90 officers of the AFP, with ranks ranging from colonel to lieutenant general. – With Marvin Sy