Chief graft buster

Be vigilant, and don’t be terrorized by those engaged in corruption. This was the message of Conchita Carpio Morales as she bade the nation goodbye this week as ombudsman.

She herself has refused to be terrorized, even after a hand grenade was found outside her home in Muntinlupa in 2012 in the early days of her stint as the country’s chief graft buster.

Facing “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News, however, Morales admitted concern over her personal safety upon her retirement. The ombudsman is not entitled to police security upon stepping down. Sources said Morales has asked for police protection.

While telling us that she was ready to enjoy retirement, she also indicated that she expected it to be anything but peaceful, with possible lawsuits ahead.

The job is a magnet for enemies. Morales made a considerable number of powerful foes during her watch, starting with the country’s highest official and his controversial son.

Morales told “The Chiefs” that she didn’t consider President Duterte a “friend.” They have met fewer than 10 times, she said, even if they are related by affinity, with her nephew married to Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.

The family ties, as we know, did not stop her office from launching an investigation into the wealth of the President’s family. Although Morales inhibited from the probe because of the kinship, and the case against the President himself has been closed for lack of evidence, she said it could still be reopened.

With Duterte picking her replacement, however, the betting is that this isn’t going to happen in the next seven years – the tenure of the ombudsman.

The wealth probe turned Morales into one of Duterte’s archenemies. Still, family ties run deep (and maybe her enemies had run out of time), and she was spared from impeachment, unlike her predecessor.

Apart from the President and his family, Morales is also no friend of the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who spent several years under “hospital arrest” without bail on charges of plunder. GMA, Morales reminded the country, still faces corruption cases before the ombudsman. Will Morales’ replacement pursue the probe? More than the lack of personnel to pursue corruption cases, the biggest problem in punishing plunderers in this country is that everything, including justice, is negotiable.

Duterte, in his State of the Nation Address that was upstaged by GMA’s House coup, said he wanted corruption stopped. “Stolen wealth does not make the thief respectable,” he said. “One day, justice will catch up with those who steal government funds.”

But the most notorious of them all, who’s still holding on to a king’s ransom in questionable wealth, is his ally and is unlikely to ever end up behind bars for world-class plunder.

Surely the street-smart Duterte occasionally wonders how Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, on their modest government salaries, could have afforded to accumulate a stunning jewelry collection plus all those artworks by the Masters. A single painting by Vincent van Gogh can fetch a mind-boggling amount at auction. That’s fortune beyond any Filipino public official’s wildest dreams.

The Swiss proudly cite their return to the Philippines of the Marcoses’ multimillion-dollar deposits in their banks as a message to the world that they don’t want despots parking their dirty money in the Swiss banking system. The logical next step is that the account holders are punished. The Swiss have a long wait ahead.

The failure to bring any of the Marcos-era crooks to justice has been one of the biggest reasons for the entrenchment of corruption in this country. They are the best role models for getting away with everything.

But the hunt for the Marcos billions is out of the hands of the ombudsman, and is now handled by the solicitor general who, like his principal, is known to have a soft spot for the Marcoses. One ombudsman did manage to land a big fish. Simeon Marcelo will be remembered for successfully prosecuting Joseph Estrada for plunder committed during his presidency. Erap, of course, never spent a day in a regular prison cell, having been pardoned pronto and his political rights restored by the person his camp called a “usurper,” now Speaker GMA.

Marcelo got sick and lost more of his hair from the stress and the sheer volume of the ombudsman’s work, enduring teasing that it was just andropause. But he took pride in having secured the conviction of a former president for large-scale graft.

Getting there, Marcelo stressed, took a lot of resources, painstaking sleuthing and financial savvy to sniff out the money trail. Individuals accused of plunder usually can afford to hire topnotch lawyers and accountants. They have strong connections in the judiciary – a decisive factor in many court cases. These types don’t go down without a fight.

* * * These types are the ones implicated in the scams involving the congressional pork barrel or Priority Development Assistance Fund and its hybrid, the Disbursement Acceleration Program.

Morales’ stint as graft buster was marred by accusations that she was selective in targeting officials for indictment in connection with the pork barrel scam.

Duterte also openly accused her of being soft on Noynoy Aquino, Mar Roxas and other officials of the previous administration. When charges were finally filed, Duterte said these were designed to be dismissed.

Morales told us that the charges filed by her office had to be based on evidence, which she said happened to be weak in several cases against Aquino and company.

Besides selective justice, the Office of the Ombudsman under Morales found several of its high-profile cases dismissed due to slow justice. Prominent (or notorious) defendants found another legal strategy for acquittal – by citing the ombudsman’s “inordinate delay” in filing indictments in court.

Several of the politicians indicted for the fertilizer fund scam (perpetrated when Speaker GMA was campaigning for the presidency in 2004) have been cleared by the courts after invoking such “inordinate delay.”

Morales has denied the delay and is hoping the judiciary will nip this trend in the bud.

Slow justice, however, usually ends up as no justice, which in turn breeds impunity.

Combine this with the fact that corruption is built into the country’s structures and processes, and the persistence of this menace is guaranteed.

Morales, in her final days on the job, said what the country needs are strong institutions, not strongmen.

In our society, all sectors, bar none, are tainted by graft. The ombudsman should lead the way in providing clean and efficient public service. Much is expected of the new ombudsman, Samuel Martires. He must not disappoint.