Serge Osmeña: Poe by a nose at SET

Sen. Serge Osmeña believes Sen. Grace Poe will win a favorable decision in her disqualification case before the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) “by a narrow margin.”

“If I look at the composition [of the SET], I’d say the numbers would be in favor of Poe by a narrow margin but (my analysis) is a secret,” Osmeña told reporters on Thursday in reply to a question on whether Poe would get the needed votes with the composition of the nine-member tribunal.

The SET is chaired by Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and has as members Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo de Castro and Arturo Brion and six senators—Tito Sotto, Loren Legarda, Cynthia Villar, Pia Cayetano, Bam Aquino and Nancy Binay.

The tribunal is looking into the question of Poe’s citizenship.

Early this week, Carpio said Poe was not a natural-born Filipino unless she could prove blood relations to biological Filipino parents.

On the fact that six senators sit on the SET, Osmeña said: “These six politicians have their beliefs, their interests and so you can’t discount that it might be a political decision.”

He said the composition of the SET was “favorable” to Poe and this would mean a “favorable” decision for her.

But even if Poe wins the case at the SET, Osmeña said the complainant, former senatorial candidate Rizalito David, is expected to appeal in the Supreme Court.

source:  Philippine Daily Inquirer

Supreme Court chooses decency, not expediency

IT is laudable and encouraging that the Supreme Court decided last week to give due course to the citizens’ petition for immediate action against officials behind the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the misuse of the pork barrel or PDAF by asking the Ombudsman to comment on the petition.

In issuing the order, the Supremes were not hampered by worries about the feelings of the sitting president. Instead of voting for political expediency, it declared that decency in government must come first. For this is as it should be. And this is what our people have long been craving for in this country.

Specifically, the SC ordered Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to comment on the petition that seeks the issuance of a judicial order that will compel the Ombudsman to investigate the authors, proponents and implementers of the disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and pursue the investigation and prosecution of persons involved in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam.

This is a huge step forward because until the SC decided to accept the case, we the people had been consigned to living with the seeming impunity (exemption from punishment) of high public officials for crimes in their official conduct, as no investigations and no charges were being filed against them despite decisions already made by the High Court on the illegality of the DAP and PDAF.

If anyone should be mad about the inaction, it is the SC because its decisions that are being ignored.

We have watched with frustration as Budget Secretary Florencio Abad has continued his rape of the budget, and sleeps well with his loot intact, while the public suffers from the miseries of misgovernance and government corruption.

With this case going forward, the nation now knows that President Aquino, regardless of his presidential immunity, will be investigated for his critical part in the depredations of the DAP and PDAF.

If the petition for mandamus is granted, the Ombudsman and the justice department must perform their statutory duty to probe Aquino for impeachment purposes, and to investigate Abad, Senate President Franklin Drilon and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. for their respective roles in facilitating such a massive looting of the public treasury.

There is no question here that the president can be investigated by the Ombudsman for “any serious misconduct in office.” His so-called presidential immunity does not exempt him because no one is above the law.

Within the high court, there is one thorn which the public should worry about. Among the justices, Junior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen showed once again his total subservience to President Aquino, who appointed him to his post after negotiating the infamous Comprehensive Agreementr on the Bangsamoro (CAB).

Leonen pushed for the immediate junking of the petition, but he was totally swamped by his colleagues who believe that Aquino, like all other officials, must be subjected to investigation – even if the investigation will be conducted by officials who owe their positions to him, namely Ombudsman Morales and Justice Secretary De Lima.

Justice Leonen misunderstands the institution that he is fortunate to be a member of. He has not realize yet that temperamentally and judiciously, the Court has decisively moved towards the affirmation of decency in government and the rejection of immorality in public service. It will consistently do the right thing when asked to rule on an issue vital to the public interest.

We pray he, like the Chief Justice, herself an Aquino appointee, learns to value the dignity and vital role of the Supreme Court in keeping our Republic and its institutions alive and well by being a fount of wisdom and civic virtue.

source:  Manila Times

Malacañang invokes Aquino immunity from suit as Ombudsman probes DAP

MALACAÑANG maintained on Tuesday that the Ombudsman has the power to go after grafters, but not a sitting president.

This, as Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales said that President Aquino, Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad and other government officials are now being investigated in connection with the implementation of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. cited the Constitution, which, he noted, protects President Aquino from being sued while in office.

“We wish to point out the constitutional principle that an incumbent president of the Philippines is immune from suit,” Coloma said.

Coloma issued the statement on Tuesday, even as he acknowledged that the Office of the Ombudsman is empowered by law to investigate allegations of misconduct, as stated by Morales in reply to a question during a hearing on the proposed budget of her office in the House of Representatives.

The Office of the President took the same position in 2013, when Mr. Aquino was first sued by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) for plunder, along with Abad and Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala, before the Ombudsman, based on findings of an official audit of the National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor), a state-run corporation, indicating alleged misuse of P1.35 billion using “shady nongovernmental organizations [NGOs].”

One of the complainants, Party-list Rep. Fernando Hicap of Anakpawis, earlier protested that the case filed by the KMP “seems to have been gathering dust over at the Office of the Ombudsman since October 2013, while there is apparently no let up on the part of Alcala’s Department of Agriculture in getting itself involved in, yet, other and greater anomalies, as shown by the COA’s [Commission on Audit] April 2015 report involving P14 billion worth of unaccounted funds for 2013, including the P6 billion supposedly earmarked for farm-to-market road projects.”

During the budget deliberations of the Office of the Ombudsman’s P1.775-billion budget for 2016, Morales said that a motu propio investigation is currently ongoing to find if there is liability on the parts of Mr. Aquino and Abad over the implementation of the DAP.

“The investigation report conducted by the Field Investigation Office is under evaluation by the Ombudsman,” Morales said.

The DAP, parts of which having been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, came under fire in 2013, after Sen. Jinggoy E. Estrada revealed that the said funds were used as “incentives” for legislators who supported the impeachment of former Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012.

News reports said that Abad allegedly transferred the DAP funds duly appropriated to one government agency to another without legislative authority, and released P50 million each to 19 senators who voted for the impeachment of Corona.

Morales said that her office is eyeing to finish the report within September, “but we will not release the investigation report [to the public]. We either approve or disapprove it. If we approve it and we [will] recommend the conduct of a preliminary investigation, then so be it. Now, if we don’t agree with the recommendation to initiate a preliminary investigation, this means the case is deemed closed and terminated.”

Meanwhile, Hicap,  in a statement, asked the Ombudsman to give him an update regarding the plunder complaint filed by the KMP against Alcala, Abad and Mr. Aquino himself, among others, over the pork-barrel scam.

Also included in the complaint were alleged pork-barrel scam queen Janet Lim-Napoles, Agriculture Undersecretary Antonio Fleta and Budget Undersecretary Mario Relampagos.

In October 2013, during the height of the pork-barrel scam issue, the KMP filed a plunder case before the Office of the Ombudsman against the respondents, citing state audits of the Nabcor, a government corporation under the agriculture department, which point to at least P1.35 billion worth of misused funds allegedly coursed through shady NGOs in the name of farmers’ socioeconomic programs.

source:  Business Mirror

Experts agree: Church-state separation doesn't apply in rap vs INC

MANILA - Three legal luminaries disagreed with the Iglesia ni Cristo's (INC) invocation of separation of church and state in asking government to stay away from the internal affairs of the INC after a former member filed a case of serious illegal detention against 8 members of its highest ruling body.

Former University of the Philippines (UP) Law Dean Pacifico Agabin in a text message said, "No, it does not. Separation does not preclude DOJ (Department of Justice) from investigating complaints of criminal activity."

In another text message, University of the East (UE) College of Law Dean Amado Valdez said separation of church-state was not violated by the DOJ in accepting the filing of a criminal complaint for investigation.

"INC's going to the street must be viewed under the right to assembly. However, the administration must not abandon its duty to investigate and prosecute. The INC leaders are not entitled to immunity and impunity," Valdez said.

(READ: Expelled INC minister unfazed, won't drop charges)

In a phone call, Atty. Rodolfo Palattao told ABS-CBN, "Itong ginawa ng INC, 'di tama ito. Ibig sabihin ng separation of the church and state, 'di tayo pwede gumawa ng batas na kikilalanin ang isang religion na kagaya ng Katoliko, El Shaddai na religion sa Pilipinas.

"Nangyayari kasi sa atin, ang gusto ng Iglesia ni Cristo, yung away ni Mr. [Isaias] Samson at yung mga members ng advisory council sila na lang maresolba, huwag na pakialaman ng gobyerno. 'Di pwede mangyari yan. Ibig sabihin ng separation, kapag meron tayong batas sa crime 'di pwedeng dun na lang sa pamilya, [pero] sa religion resolbahin [nila]."

"That will be a very bad precedent na kikilalanin mo sila na lang... Yun kasing serious illegal detention, labag sa Revised Penal Code. 'Di naman pwede dahil may religion, kahit mag-violate ng criminal case dun mo pare-resolve sa religion na yun. 'Pag ginawa nating ganyan, walang rule of law," he added.

On Monday, INC historian and Minister Brother Adriel Meimban told ABS-CBN the INC has done nothing illegal as it was merely imposing disciplinary measures on erring members.

INC members started their protests on a call for government to respect the separation of church and state following the filing of an illegal detention charge against 8 members of the INC's highest governing body, the Sanggunian.

source:  ABS-CBN