THE Office of the Ombudsman on Thursday failed to immediately secure a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Court of Appeals’s (CA) implementation of its order enjoining the six-month preventive suspension order on Makati City Mayor Erwin “Junjun” Binay Jr.
At a news briefing, Supreme Court Spokesman Theodore Te agreed to just order the respondents CA’s Sixth Division and Binay to comment on the petition for certiorari and prohibition filed by the Ombudsman not later than April 6, the start of the Court’s summer session in Baguio City.
Binay’s suspension was in connection with the graft case filed against him for the alleged overpricing of the construction of the Makati City Hall Building 2.
In her 36-page petition for certiorari and prohibition filed on Wednesday, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales also asked the Court to enjoin the CA’s Sixth Division from conducting further proceedings in connection with the petition filed by Binay seeking the nullification of his suspension, as well as his supplemental petition seeking to cite in contempt the Ombudsman, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II and several others for their purported refusal to heed the TRO issued by the CA.
Besides the CA, the Ombudsman named the Makati City mayor as respondent in the petition.
Carpio-Morales argued that the CA’s issuance of a TRO on the preventive suspension order it issued against Binay has undermined the Ombudsman’s independence as acknowledged in the Constitution and Republic Act 6770, or the Ombudsman Act of 1989. It explained that the Office of the Ombudsman is an independent body created by the 1987 Constitution to curb corruption and abuse in the government
It added that it was deliberately constitutionalized and placed outside the ambit of the political branches of the government to free it from the insidious tentacles of politics.”
“Indeed, if the Office of the Ombudsman’s constitutionally guaranteed independence were to mean anything, it would have to include the freedom to conduct administrative proceedings openly, decisively and without undue interference,” the petition said.
“If the directive in Section 14 of RA [Republic Act] 6770 is to be respected, respondent Court of Appeals should be prevented from further delaying, compromising and interfering with the ongoing resolution of the cases against respondent Binay,” it added.
Likewise, the Ombudsman argued that Binay’s continued access to documents and witnesses at the Makati City Hall compromises and endangers the integrity of the pending administrative cases against him.
The Ombudsman also assailed the resolution of the CA directing the respondents to comment on the motion to cite them in contempt.
It claimed that the petition for contempt filed by Binay is an attempt to further “becloud” the legal effect of the TRO issued by the CA in light of the earlier implementation of the suspension order and the swearing in of an acting mayor.
“What respondent Binay forgets, however, is that petitioner is an impeachable officer who cannot be subjected by respondent Court of Appeals to contempt proceedings, for official acts committed in the discharge of her functions and duties,” Morales said.
It added that the CA allowed itself to be an instrument of Binay in its bid to delay the administrative cases against him before the Ombudsman.
“What we seek to avoid is the ‘Binay case’ wittingly or unwittingly creating a ‘template” for other future respondents in criminal and administrative cases to pattern their strategies after,” the Ombudsman pointed out.
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When it comes to integrity between the Ombudsman and the court of appeals, the choice is clear. The ombudsman should not be subject to the whims of a court whose integrity have been compromised in the past. The Supreme court should go out of its way to clarify the situation promptly. This calls for immediate en banc decision.