impeachment – Page 7 – marichulambino.com

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(Photo by ombudsman.gov.ph, a government site, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes; cropped for composition)

Furious as hell as described by witnesses, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez threatened the signatories of the impeachment complaint against her that she would launch criminal investigations or file criminal complaints against them.

She may argue later on that since the criminal investigations would be conducted by DOJ prosecutors on complaints she would file, she could legally make such threats and not cross the lawful line ( i try not to comment on “moral lines”).

She did cross the line, the lawful line. She has jurisdiction over at least two of the signatories and the partylist representatives and congressmen who had endorsed and may endorse the impeachment complaint against her [ jurisdiction over U.P. faculty members (and therefore, technically, government employees), Professors Randy David and Karina Constantino-David and criminal jurisdiction over all the congressmen]It is she who would finally review any finding of a prima facie case of a criminal complaint against such government employees, and it is those prosecutors seated and clapping behind her during the presscon who would conduct the fact-finding and preliminary investigation of such criminal complaints.

She has the power to indict them, and she has threatened and promised to use such power against them.

Perhaps blinded by unchecked power, she had been blind to the fact that she too is an officer of the court and therefore, like all lawyers, governed by the Code of Professional Conduct — a code of rules for all lawyers which she had violated with her public threat to avenge the filing of the impeachment complaint against her by using the jurisdiction she has against such signatories.

Chastising the Supreme Court during the presscon by saying that the SC justices did not have jurisdiction over the determination of a prima facie case against those involved in the Mega-Pacific case, she has been blind to the fact that the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over all lawyers and she as an officer of the court is subject to the discipline required of all members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

She may be constitutional unmovable except by impeachment but as lawyer, she is not constitutionally invincible — her heretofore unchecked power and threat-making, not constitutionally absolute.

(or is she about to say that she is a god-lawyer, that she is above the Supreme Court, and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, and that vengeance will always be hers)

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(Photo by the Office of the Ombudsman website, a government site, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes)

According to news reports, an impeachment complaint was filed this morning against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez by well known civic and corporate leaders for betrayal of public trust for her failure to act on complaints of corruption against high-ranking government officials involving hundred of millions of pesos and the unusual and inordinate delay of her office in acting on complaints against high-ranking public officials (two to three years of not even issuing a subpoena to the respondent to appear or file an answer to a complaint filed; ordinary prosecutors and courts usually take a month or two to issue a subpoena to a respondent to appear and file an answer; in other words, she or her office is 2,400% slower than our ordinary courts or prosecutors in requiring respondents to appear or file an answer; the explanation for this is that, Jocjoc Bolante, a respondent, was out of the country for three years and if he had been served the subpoena at his last known address, the time to file an answer or to appear would have ran out, he would have been in default, and the complaint would have been resolved on the basis alone of the complaint filed and documentary evidence attached and their own investigation. In cases of default, more likely, the complaint would be deemed not controverted or not denied, i.e., a respondent or defendant has to specifically deny each allegation otherwise those would be deemed not controverted; and therefore , because it would be based on one party’s evidence alone, more likely, it would be resolved against the respondent who failed to file an answer or who was in default. Time did not run out against Jocjoc for three years. Because no subpoena was ever issued against him. For three years. Now he is is able to defend himself as if nothing happened and as if he never evaded processes. Up to now, the complaint against him is still pending.) The impeachment complaint lists a host of other cases of “incompetence” and “dereliction of duty”.

The procedure for the impeachment complaint is provided in Art. XI Sec. 3 of the Constitution.

There’s the long way and the expeditious route. The long way is: it is endorsed by a member of the House and it goes through the Committee hearings then voted upon by the Committee, etc. The expeditious route is: the complaint is signed by at least one-third of all the members of the House, the complaint then becomes the Articles of Impeachment and goes straight to the Senate for trial (as happened with Estrada in November, 2000. By the way, i saw a replay of Ombudsman Mercy’s interview and when asked whether there were any high-ranking government official that she had convicted, she took credit for the conviction of former general Garcia for perjury and former President Estrada for plunder. Maybe she had been supervising us all along during the prosecution of Estrada and i didn’t know it, maybe she is credited for it because she allowed Special Prosecutor Villaignacio to do his job then after the plunder case, supported the complaints against him; her interviews show that she supported those complaints against her own Special Prosecutor for whose work (People vs. Estrada) she took credit.)