Perez clears fiscal in Kimberly case

Justice Secretary Hernando Perez cleared a Quezon City prosecutor yesterday of any administrative liability in the pullout of Kimberly-Clark from the Philippines.

"He was never the problem," said Perez, referring to state prosecutor Raymond Lledo.

In her recent State of the Nation Address, President Arroyo mentioned about the case of Kimberly-Clark in stressing the need to go after erring fiscals and judges.

Perez said the court had insisted that Mary Catherine Foronda, secretary-general of UP Likha who accused Kimberly-Clark of violating the Water Code of the Philippines, should appear and swear to the authenticity of her affidavit of desistance.

"The motion for reconsideration (before Lledo) was filed when the case was already filed in court, plus the desistance. The court refused to dismiss the case unless the complainant swore (to the authenticity of her desistance)," he added.

The court dismissed the case last February. But Kimberly-Clark has since relocated to Thailand.

Meanwhile, Perez said the administrative investigation on San Fernando City, La Union prosecutor Oscar Corpus "will continue."

Corpus came under fire for downgrading the kidnapping charges against two of the eight alleged Chinese abductors of Jacky Rowena Tiu.

Assistant chief state prosecutor Nilo Mariano, who is in charge of the probe, said they will likely move for a "formal investigation" because Corpus failed to justify satisfactorily his decision to downgrade the charges against Zhang Du and Henry Ong.

The three-man prosecution team handling the Tiu case had asked La Union Regional Trial Court Judge Antonio Carbonnel Jr. to upgrade the charges against the two accused, but this was denied.