By MARC CAYABYAB, GIAN GERONIMO, KATHLYN DELA CRUZ and CYRILL YAMBAO
WHILE charges may still be filed against former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez who resigned on Friday, progressive partylist groups called for efforts to be directed to charging former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
“Now with Merci gone we can concentrate on prosecuting (Arroyo) for electoral fraud, graft and corruption and human rights violations,” said Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Neri Colmenares in an interview with VERA Files.
Bayan Muna earlier announced it will file plunder charges against Arroyo, now Pampanga representative, before the Department of Justice.
Akbayan partylist group told at a press conference today that it too will definitely file criminal charges against Arroyo.
“The liability of the (former) president is so interlinked with the articles of impeachment (against Gutierrez),” said Akbayan Rep. Kaka Bag-ao. She added that there is a need to “refocus (the impeachment charges)” to evaluate the evidence against Arroyo.
The charges will include Arroyo’s alleged participation in the botched NBN-ZTE deal and the multibillion-peso fertilizer fund scam.
“(Now that) the wall has been destroyed, GMA is already very exposed so we just have to change the venue…We can use the courts, we can use the streets to tell the story,” Bag-ao said.
Lawyer Cristina Yambot, the youngest member of the impeachment legal team, agreed that “efforts must first be directed to GMA.”
Merci not off the hook
Still, Yambot said there is evidence that points to the culpability of Gutierrez “in whitewashing the cases filed against Arroyo.” Their team is conferring whether charges will be filed against Gutierrez.
Akbayan also said Gutierrez can still be charged and sent to jail.
Renato Reyes Jr. of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said Gutierrez can be charged with violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act or Republic Act No. 3019. The law prosecutes public and private officials for corrupt practices, which include the neglect or refusal to act on one’s duties for personal or material advantage, or for the purpose of giving undue advantage to an interested party.
“Our evidences will really show that Gutierrez was chiefly responsible for failing to file charges against Arroyo for six years,” Reyes said.
Colmenares, also a member of the impeachment legal team, confirmed that Gutierrez can still be charged “criminally and administratively.”
“Gutierrez only resigned from office because our evidences against her are strong. She is afraid of criminal and administrative charges,” Colmenares said, reacting to Gutierrez’s claim that she resigned with best interests of the nation in mind.
Melchor Cayabyab of the Oust Merceditas Gutierrez coalition, a panelist at the press conference in Quezon City, said the Filipino people should celebrate as Gutierrez’s resignation was her utang na loob (debt of gratitude) to the public.
He added, “The resignation was due to the pressure from different civil society groups and not an act of heroism.”
On Friday, Gutierrez resigned from her post. In a press conference at the Office of the Ombudsman, she said she was resigning “for the sake of national interest.”
“The last thing that the nation needs is for the House and the Senate to be embroiled in a long drawn-out impeachment proceeding against a single person,” she said in her resignation speech.
The impeachment trial against Gutierrez was set to begin upon the resumption of Congress on May 9. Her resignation takes effect May 6.
On March 22, the House of Representatives, led by Justice Committee Chair Niel Tupas Jr., filed House Resolution No. 1089, stating the articles of impeachment against Gutierrez. These articles pertained to the following acts allegedly committed by the former Ombudsman:
- Inaction on the P728 million fertilizer fund scam, which was alleged to been used in Arroyo’s 2004 presidential campaign
- Failure to act on the “Euro Generals” scandal, which involved six police officials smuggling P6.9 million worth of euros to Russia in 2008
- Inaction on the investigation on Ensign Phillip Pestaño’s death, a Navy officer who supposedly committed suicide but was alleged to have been murdered upon knowledge of his superiors’ anomalies
- Failure to convict Commission on Elections officials as well as private persons involved in the billion-peso Comelec-Mega Pacific automated machine contract
- Exclusion of Arroyo from the NBN-ZTE scandal, as well as the absolution of her husband, Jose Miguel, from prosecution in the same issue
- The poor conviction rate of the Office of the Ombudsman in general during Gutierrez’s term
(The authors are University of the Philippines student interns of VERA Files.)