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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO and PRINCE GOLEZ
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February 2, 2018
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MANILA – Only a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Supreme Court can stop the suspension of Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Carandang, Malacañang said on Thursday.
“Without a TRO from Supreme Court, we will implement the law,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque told a press briefing.
“It is incumbent upon Mr. Carandang to submit his answers within the required period,” Roque added. “After the lapse of the period, the Office of the President shall decide on the matter.”
The Office of the Executive Secretary ordered the 90-day preventive suspension of Carandang after charging him over his disclosures on the alleged bank transactions of the President Rodrigo Duterte that his office was investigating.
On Wednesday Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales insisted that she will not implement Carandang’s suspension. She called the order “patently unconstitutional.”
“The Ombudsman will thus not allow herself to betray her sworn duty to uphold the Constitution by recognizing what is patently unconstitutional as ordained by the Supreme Court en banc in January 2014,” she said.
Roque challenged the Ombudsman to secure a TRO from the Supreme Court.
“If the Ombudsman thinks that (the 2014 Supreme Court en banc decision) is a basis, they should go to the SC. Go get a TRO,” Roque said.
The Duterte spokesman pointed out that then President Benigno Aquino III removed three deputy ombudsmen.
“The opposition senators had the same view that the president has the power to discipline all unimpeachable officers then,” said Roque.
One of those Aquino fired were Deputy Ombudsman Emilio Gonzales III, but the high court overturned the decision and reinstated Gonzales.
SC INTERVENTION
Meanwhile Sen. Franklin Drilon asked the Supreme Court to “immediately” intervene. He feared of a “constitutional crisis” amid a “clash” between the Office of the President and the Office of the Ombudsman, which are independent constitutional offices.
He suggested that the Palace file a petition for mandamus with the high court to compel Morales to enforce the suspension, and that the Ombudsman file a petition to set aside the suspension order and seek a TRO on the ground that it is contrary to a Supreme Court ruling that voided the presidential power to discipline deputy ombudsmen.
“Which interpretation is correct cannot be left to the President or the Ombudsman,” Drilon said. “The Supreme Court must rule as the final arbiter.”
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV supported the position of Morales.
The order to suspend Carandang was “clearly an illegal and unconstitutional order by Duterte and his minions,” Trillanes said on Thursday.
Duterte was “very wrong” for suspending the deputy ombudsman investigating his allegedly undisclosed bank records and, in a way, the President was “obstructing justice,” said Trillanes.
Sen. Francis Pangilinan, for his part, said Morales’ defiance was “simply enforcing an SC decision that says the President cannot suspend the ombudsman or his or her deputies.”
Supreme Court decisions form part of the law of the land, said Pangilinan. “She (Morales) is upholding the rule of law and for this she has our support.”/PN
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