No resignation; will answer any charges of President Duterte, says Morales

The word war between President Duterte and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales continued on Tuesday with Morales refusing to answer his dare for them to resign together and ignoring his call to open their bank records.

“I will not be baited into abandoning my constitutional

duties. If the President has charges against me, I will answer them in accordance with the law. I expect him to answer the charges against him in the same manner,” she said in a statement released by her media liaison officer Alma Tuason.

Morales added that they are public officials who have “sworn to uphold the rule of law,” so they should try to do their jobs with “honor, honesty, and decency.”

President Duterte has refused to submit to its probe, insisting that the Office of the Ombudsman is corrupt. Instead, the President Duterte called on Morales and Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno to resign together with him, and be investigated for corruption.

Last week, Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang told media that they have obtained documents from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) which showed how Duterte and his family allegedly acquired ill-gotten wealth throughout the years. However, he said, they still do not have AMLC’s final investigation report.

But in a statement released late Monday afternoon, Carandang said he does not have in his possession the bank transactions. He said he was merely “reading through the documents shown to him by the media during the ambush interview, in response to media’s inquiry on the status of the complaint after more than a year since its filing and in stating that a request was made to AMLC as part of the regular investigative process.”

Carandang said the Office of the Ombudsman “observed confidentiality in the Ombudsman investigation on the complaint against then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, which complaint was filed, in fact, even before the 2016 elections.”