5 separate cases resolved jointly

Something has to be said about the way the Ombudsman disciplined five local executives last week. It sucks.

In quick succession from mid-morning to late afternoon of Friday, Jan. 12 the anti-graft watchdog came out with findings of corruption or abuse of authority by Iloilo Gov. Neil Tupaz, Pasay City Mayor Wenceslao Trinidad, and Jaen (Nueva Ecija) Mayor Antonio Esquivel. Their punishment: dismissal from office and perpetual ban from election or appointment to public office. Somewhere in that day’s flurry of punitive actions came the preventive suspension of Batangas Gov. Armand Sanchez, pending investigation also for corruption. Three days earlier, on Tuesday Jan. 9, the Ombudsman similarly suspended Cavite Gov. Ireneo Maliksi, pending investigation for abuse.

Ordinarily citizens tired of seeing the big fish get away with crime would rejoice at the swift justice – but not in this instance when timing was bad. Timing, in fact, smacked of injustice.

Friday not only happened to be the last working day of the week. Two days after, Sunday Jan. 14, also happened to be the start of the election period for the 2007 congressional and local balloting.

The election period, this year from Jan. 14 to June 14, is a special 150-day stretch. Fixed by the Commission on Elections, it is a time when local and national government agencies are prohibited from hiring, firing or transferring personnel; from starting new public works or signing new public contracts; and from relocating mass houses. Civilians during the period are also forbidden from carrying firearms outside residences, unless with special Comelec permit. Poll contenders may begin to file or withdraw certificates of candidacy, but not to campaign, because a separate time for that starts one month after the start of the election period, and ends one month before the end of the election period. At any rate, the reasons for the prohibitions are obvious: to prevent officials from misusing their powers and protect subordinates from harassment, and make for generally clean, orderly elections.

This column had been critical at times of two or three of the five penalized officials. But it will not hesitate to point out the Ombudsman’s prejudicial acts against them.

That the sacking of Tupaz, Trinidad and Esquivel, and suspension of Sanchez were done on a Friday smack of sneakiness. Even non-lawyers will sense the wrong. Suspects in minor offenses, say libel, alarm and scandal or tooting in public, may not be arrested on Fridays, so that they need not fry in jail over the weekend before availing of the right to bail from a judge on the next workday. The judicial process should protect the rights of the accused as much as those of the accuser. In that vein, the sentencing of an accused should also not be done on a Friday, so that he is spared from a weekend of no judicial redress. It’s not as if the punished officials were accused of heinous crime. The harsh treatment makes laymen wonder what’s taking authorities so long to charge reelectionist Abra Gov. Vicente Valera of killing Rep. Luis Bersamin.

That Maliksi was suspended on a Tuesday does not make it any better, because it was made also at the 11th hour before the start of the election period. The Ombudsman may have the power to discipline public officials (except impeachable ones), but it also has the duty to uphold justice. The punished officials have a right to appeal. But what the Ombudsman did was order the Department of Interior and Local Government to evict the five at once or not allow them to report for work. it did not look like speedy justice but undue haste to get them out of the way before the start of the campaign period.

The dismissals of Tupaz, Trinidad and Esquivel are graver because of the perpetual bans from public office. This means, there is that big question if they can still run for any office in May 2007. The Ombudsman did not seem to care about the seeming midnight sentencing. One of its officers said it’s now up to the Comelec to decide whether to accept their candidacy. Timing was not the only thing bad, but also the copout attitude.

This leads to a question for the Ombudsman: why did it take so long for the cases to be litigated? More than that, why did all five cases, which are for separate misdeeds and filed at different times, happen to be resolved all on the same week from Jan. 9 to 12?

The bad timing opens the Ombudsman to suspicion of waiting up to the last minute for somebody to come paying his way out of a punishment. If not that, then at least a suspicion that it pretends to look busy doing something – even if wrong, like rushing to judgment on five separate cases.

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The early announcements of senatorial lineups by the administration and opposition give voters a nauseating preview of what kind of Senate it will be. That is, a Senate composed of old names, with the added insult of possibly more relatives sitting at the same time.

The 12th Congress already saw cousins John and Sergio Osmeña serving simultaneously, along with in-laws Robert Jaworski and Ramon Revilla. The 13th had mother and son Loi Ejercito and Jinggoy Estrada. If three opposition hopefuls win – and the opposition always has the edge in any mid-term election – the 14th Congress might have Alan Peter Cayetano, Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, and JV Ejercito as winners. If so, the Senate secretariat should drop all pretensions against political dynasties and seat Alan beside his sister Senator Pia, Koko with his dad Aquilino Jr., and JV with half-brother Jinggoy. Another pair of kin, Noynoy Aquino and aunt Tessie Aquino Oreta, son and sister respectively of Ninoy Aquino, are said to be eyeing senatorial seats as well.

The propensity for old names and related winners springs from the nature of national elections. They depend on personal popularity, not party platform, for victory. Otherwise, with no surname-recall, one must spend triple or more than the allowable P10 for each of the 45 million voters.

Charter Change could have ended that unworkable system.

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