Who else did ex-ombudsman ‘secretly’ exonerate?

Ex-ombudsman Samuel Martires would do well to answer that question. Filipinos find suspicious his erstwhile unknown pardon of Sen. Joel Villanueva for graft as far back as 2019.

Martires’ claim is queer. He never publicized his exculpation of Villanueva supposedly to “protect a person’s dignity.” Duh! Doesn’t absolution from a crime restore a person’s dignity? So why hide it? Baligtad na ba ang mundo?

Queerer is Villanueva’s silence all these years. His graft buster image was tarnished 17 years ago in 2008 when as Citizen’s Battle Against Corruption party rep he was linked to P10-million sleaze.

In 2013 pork barrel-fixer Janet Lim Napoles named Villanueva among her 100 congressmen-accomplices. In 2016 then-ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales ordered him, then a newly-elected senator, dismissed from public office.

Wouldn’t he have gone to town with his absolution 11 years later in 2019? Yet he was silent.

His clearance came during Martires’ first year in office. In that first year Martires made more difficult the public’s access to officials’ statements of assets, liabilities and net worth. His appointer president Rodrigo Duterte had refused to divulge his SALNs.

Villanueva is now implicated in the P1.7-trillion flood works scandal. Three DPWH officials confessed to handing him hundred million-peso illegal campaign contributions from government contractors in Election 2022.

New Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla had wanted the Senate to belatedly enforce Carpio-Morales’ nine-year long ruling. But Villanueva surprised him Thursday with certifications of “no pending cases” from the ombudsman and Sandiganbayan. Aghast, Remulla asked longtime reporters if they ever heard of Villanueva’s 2019 clearance. The newsmen were as astounded.

Former solicitor general Florin Hilbay, 2014-2016, hit the validity of Martires’ act: “If it’s true, as Ombudsman Remulla asserts, that the cases against Joel Villanueva were dismissed by former ombudsman Martires in secret – ‘Di naman na-publish yan, ‘di yan nilabas, nobody knew about it.’ – then Ombudsman Remulla should treat such order as mere internal memo subject to his reconsideration or reversal.

“The order of former ombudsman Carpio-Morales dismissing Senator Villanueva for the PDAF scam was a public act. Former ombudsman Martires had no authority to reverse that decision in secret, thereby depriving the public or any interested party from questioning his decision before the Supreme Court. Therefore, Ombudsman Remulla can treat the secret memo as having had no effect and can proceed with his intention to request the Senate to enforce the original order of dismissal.”

Former Ombudsman Samuel Martires

Another oddity was the Sandiganbayan’s exoneration from graft Friday of Presidential Chief Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile.

The anti-graft court ruled that prosecutors didn’t prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt of P173-million pork barrel kickbacks in 2013. Cleared too were Enrile’s chief of staff Jessica Lucila Reyes and Napoles.

But the court held Napoles civilly liable and ordered her to return the money to the Treasury.

Talagang baligtad na ang mundo.

It’s reminiscent of Sandiganbayan’s 2018 acquittal of ex-senator Bong Revilla. The court cleared him of Napoles’ racket, but ordered him to return P124.5 million.

Why should he when, he maintains, it’s unclear whom the court told to restitute? If he’s innocent, why should he return the money that his chief of staff Richard Cambe deposited in the senator’s account?

The court has not bothered to clarify till today. It convicted Cambe, who has since died in prison.

Nearly all Sandiganbayan cases against 20 senators and 100 congressmen linked to Napoles were dismissed. The reason was similar: prosecutors’ inability to prove guilt.

In nearly all cases about Marcos and cronies’ stolen wealth, Sandiganbayan rulings were also similar: dismissed for prosecutors’ delay.

All these bring to mind the Supreme Court’s own strange ruling on VP Sara Duterte’s impeachment.

It deemed the House of Reps to have faultily impeached her without a plenary decision. It cited an ABS-CBN news report that supposedly stated no plenary last Feb. 5.

Yet the ABS-CBN news item twice mentioned the plenary. Same with a second news bit that the SC also footnoted.

How can 13 justices unanimously decide based on non-existent news? They did so in a special en banc July 25 amid storms and floods.

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