Duterte may yet win if Carandang brings case to SC

CRITICS of President Rodrigo Duterte are banking on a Supreme Court (SC) ruling in 2014 that they say will nullify President’s move to suspend Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang. But this SC decision was a split one – under a radically different political environment – and it is possible that the court will reverse itself again.

Many have forgotten that on September 4, 2012, the Supreme Court en banc had originally ruled that the President has disciplinary jurisdiction over a Deputy Ombudsman and a Special Prosecutor. “The power to appoint carries with it the power to remove,” the court said in 2012.

The cited case involved the dismissal of Deputy Ombudsman Emilio Gonzales III by then President Benigno Aquino III for gross neglect of duty and grave misconduct. Gonzalez was the Ombudsman official who handled the case of dismissed police officer Rolando Mendoza, who later took on tourists as hostages in the infamous 2010 Luneta bus incident.

The High Court in 2012 also upheld the constitutionality of Section 8(2) of Republic Act No. 6770, the Ombudsman Act, which states: “A Deputy, or the Special Prosecutor, may be removed from office by the President for any of the grounds provided for the removal of the Ombudsman, and after due process.”

However, the court had ordered the reinstatement of Gonzales and because of this, the Aquino government filed a motion for reconsideration of the SC 2012 decision.

On January 28, 2014, the court en banc voted to reverse itself in G.R. No. 196231 and said that Section 8(2) of RA No. 6770 was unconstitutional. It was a close vote, virtually a split, 8 to 7.

Now we have another case of dismissal of an official of the Ombudsman. Just this week, the Office of the Executive Secretary suspended Deputy Ombudsman Carandang for 90 days for grave misconduct, grave dishonesty, and disclosing false information about Duterte’s alleged bank accounts.

Carandang last year told the media that his office received bank records showing the accounts of President Duterte and his family. He said the documents in his possession has the same details as the ones being shown by Senator Antonio Trillanes, who had earlier claimed Duterte had 11 billion in his bank accounts. (Duterte has denied this, saying his life savings would not go beyond 140 million.)

Carandang was quoted as saying on September 26, 2017: “We can confirm that we received bank transaction records coming from the AMLC, generated by AMLC for intelligence purposes.” AMLC is the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

He bragged, too, that his office and the AMLC were sharing information on flagged bank transactions. “We will establish the corruption side, they (AMLC) will establish the money laundering side,” he said.

The next day, AMLC rejected Carandang’s claims. The council also denied giving Carandang any bank documents of the Duterte family accounts, and it also denied conducting any investigation into the financial transactions of the President.

Fast-forward to four months later: the Office of the President, as represented by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, ordered the suspension of Carandang following the complaint filed by lawyers Manuel Luna and Eligio Mallari in October 2017.

Carandang was given 10 days to explain why he should not be suspended. Formal charges were filed against Carandang, including violations of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

Critics of the Duterte administration said that the President cannot suspend or fire Carandang since he is an official of the Office of the Ombudsman, which they said is an independent body under the 1987 Constitution.

They also cited the 2014 ruling of the Supreme Court, but fail to mention the earlier 2012 decision that affirms the power of the president to suspend a public official that he himself appointed. “Granting the President the power to remove a deputy Ombudsman does not diminish the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman,” the SC said in 2012.

The circumstances of the Carandang case is also totally different from the one of Gonzales, which had a national urgency and an emotional complexity following the death of eight Hong Kong Chinese tourists in the Luneta incident. Carandang’s, on the other hand, is but a lame attempt to do a political follow-up on Trillanes’ unsubstantiated charges against the President.

Political winds have also shifted immeasurably since four years ago. Today’s 15-man Supreme Court is comprised primarily of appointees of President Duterte and his ally, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Aquino stalwart Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno is also seeing her influence eroded as she faces an impeachment complaint in Congress amid the continued fall in her public ratings.

We counted nine justices that could affirm the decision of Duterte to exercise his presidential right to suspend public officials. Only six justices, mostly appointees of Aquino, are likely to vote against the Duterte administration if ever a case is brought before the High Court that will trigger a review of the ruling on G.R. No. 196231.

Hopefully, Mr. Carandang will do the right thing in light of his irresponsible statements that were proven false by the AMLC itself. He should resign and spare the nation from seeing all these cumbersome politicking.