GMA objection to Carpio-Morales nomination may backfire, says Palace

MANILA, Philippines - Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s opposition to the nomination of Conchita Carpio-Morales as ombudsman may have unwittingly worked in the retiring Supreme Court justice’s favor, a Palace official hinted over the weekend.

The source, who requested anonymity, said that this could have been the biggest mistake Arroyo committed, noting that President Aquino now has more reason to appoint Morales as successor of Merceditas Gutierrez, who resigned last May 6.

“If GMA doesn’t really like her then that could most likely be the reason why Justice Morales would be appointed,” he predicted, taking into consideration the President’s attitude that the more you press him into doing something, the more he refuses to do so, which is also true with objections.

The Palace official also predicted that Morales – the first female jurist to administer the oath to a Chief Executive in the person of Aquino in June 2010 – may after all be a shoo-in to the country’s premier independent graft investigating body.

This is because Aquino has five or six allies in the eight-member Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), the body that screens applicants to the judiciary and the Ombudsman, with the exception of Chief Justice Renato Corona, who heads the constitutional body, and another one.

The source said Morales could easily hurdle the JBC voting and make it to the shortlist because its members include Aquino allies Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, Sen. Francis Escudero, Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., among others.

Malacañang has acknowledged that Aquino will be bound by the shortlist that the JBC will provide him, which means that he will only be picking from the names it has screened. JBC has until Aug. 6 to submit a list of possible replacements for Gutierrez.

“Constitutionally, we are bound by the (JBC) shortlist,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda told Palace reporters in a briefing, implying that they cannot do anything if Morales’ name is not in the list.

He recalled that during the time of former president Arroyo, she returned the list that JBC sent her, but the nine-man body tasked to screen applicants to the judiciary made no amendments and submitted it again to her unrevised.

“You (president, as appointing authority) are required to approve from the list that they (JBC members) submitted,” Lacierda explained. “Before it (JBC shortlist) is submitted to us, we, in the executive branch, can perform no function.”

He also defended Morales’ Ombudsman nomination, insisting that her voting record during the term of Arroyo is her strongest qualification since she had been consistent in striking down policies of the previous administration.

He rebuffed the ex-president on her claims that Ombudsman-nominee Carpio-Morales does not have the independence needed for the post.

Lacierda pointed out that the voting record of the female magistrate, who will retire as Supreme Court justice on June 19, is more than enough proof of her independence and impartiality.

Morales was appointed by Arroyo. She is a cousin of fellow SC Justice Antonio Carpio, a former counsel for the Arroyo family who had a falling out with the ex-president, sometime in 2006, when news of the so-called “Hello, Garci” scandal broke out.

Since then, Carpio and Morales were among the main dissenters in the 15-man tribunal on issues involving policies of the past administration. Before Arroyo stepped down, all SC justices were her appointees, owing to her long nine-year term, from January 2001 to June 2010.

Lacierda described Arroyo’s objections to Morales’ nomination to the Ombudsman a “disturbing piece.”

“It wasn’t so long ago as to be beyond recall when Ms. Arroyo and her acolytes had virtuously declaimed that the SC was not in her pocket as president, saying it was sheer coincidence that the majority voted favorably on cases raised against her policies,” he said.

“As Claro M. Recto famously remarked, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. At the very least the aggressive assertion of independence on the part of the high court’s majority Ms. Arroyo insisted upon should be given Justice Morales,” Lacierda added.

Mike has issue, too

But it is not only the former president who has an issue with a particular nominee for Ombudsman.

Former first gentleman lawyer Jose Miguel Arroyo has asked the JBC, in a two-page letter last June 6, not to include lawyer Ernesto Francisco Jr., who was nominated by former Pampanga Gov. Eddie Panlilio, in its shortlist to be submitted to the President.

Francisco was one of those who charged him with graft in connection to the controversial NBN-ZTE deal. – With Edu Punay