Sources say Morales could have stopped Garcia plea deal

MANILA, Philippines - Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales could have succeeded in stopping the controversial plea bargaining agreement between former military comptroller Carlos Garcia and her predecessor Merceditas Gutierrez, if she only filed a motion praying for the junking of the same instead of a mere position paper. 

Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The STAR the Sandiganbayan was bent on granting such a request but no such pleading was submitted by the Office of the Ombudsman.

Records show that Morales filed a position paper in September 2011 “praying” that the Garcia plea bargaining deal approved in May of the same year “be nullified and set aside.”

But in a clarificatory hearing called by the Sandiganbayan the following month, Morales refused to actually move for the junking of the agreement which allows Garcia, charged with plunder, to plead guilty to the lesser crimes of direct bribery and facilitating money laundering.

Through her lawyers Christian Uy and Maricel Oquiendo, she said the position paper “should not be treated as a motion as it was only an expression of the new Ombudsman’s views and stand and that basically it was just food for thought.”

Had she converted that into a motion, the sources said “the accused would be given the chance to comment, and there was greater possibility that (the prayer therein) would be granted.”

The sources even noted that based on the actuations of Sandiganbayan Special Second Division chair Teresita Diaz-Baldos and Associate Justice Samuel Martires during the clarificatory hearing, they were pushing Morales to “go ahead and convert that into a motion” which was “an indication that the justices were bent on granting the prayer in the position paper.”

The anti-graft court, in its 73-page decision upholding the legality of the Garcia plea bargaining agreement released last week, actually discussed the issue of the position paper to stress that it was not a motion.

In their ruling, Diaz-Baldos, Martires, and Associate Justices Roland Jurado and Alex Quiroz even quoted three separate news reports, including one in The STAR, to show that even the media understood that Morales did not officially move for the junking of the deal.

The magistrates said they called for a clarificatory hearing to “give the new Ombudsman the opportunity to explain.”

They said they were actually “surprised” to learn that Morales did not want to convert her position paper into a motion, which was the only way to make the anti-graft court act on it.

“In view of the ambivalent stance posed by the Office of the Ombudsman, there was no way by which the court could grant the prayer in the position paper without according due process to Maj. Gen. Garcia who was of one mind with the Ombudsman in seeking for the court’s approval of the plea bargaining agreement,” the decision stated.

The Sandiganbayan was referring to the fact that it was the Office of the Ombudsman under the leadership of Gutierrez which, along with the accused, asked the Sandiganbayan to approve the plea bargaining deal.

Actual transcripts of the October 2011 clarificatory hearing cited by the anti-graft court in its latest decision even quoted Uy as saying that “we leave it up to the court, to the honorable justices, to dispose of it as it is basically just food for thought.”