Sleeping on the job
In all likelihood, Congress may have enacted Republic Act 11032 precisely because Martires has been sleeping on his job as the Ombudsman.
Daily TribuneIn all likelihood, Congress may have enacted Republic Act 11032 precisely because Martires has been sleeping on his job as the Ombudsman.
One of the few unfortunate mistakes former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte committed during his tenure was to appoint former Supreme Court Justice Samuel Martires to the post of Ombudsman in August 2018.
Since he assumed office as Ombudsman, Martires has been constantly making unsound administrative decisions.
His latest questionable act is his recent public statement that Republic Act 11032, the law creating the Anti-Red Tape Authority, is unconstitutional. Under this law, the ARTA is empowered to take legal action against government agencies that tolerate unnecessary delays in the delivery of services to the general public.
According to Martires, those powers vested in the ARTA under the said law are replications of the functions of the Office of the Ombudsman, particularly its power to monitor and prevent red tape in the government bureaucracy.
Ironically, however, he admits that under his watch, the Office of the Ombudsman has not yet even begun to carry out its duty to fight red tape in government agencies throughout the country.
In other words, he says the ARTA law is unconstitutional because it is performing the anti-red tape function of the Office of the Ombudsman, although the latter has yet to carry out that function in the first place.
Martires has been sleeping on the job as seen from his own admission that his office has not done anything to address the problem of red tape in government since he became Ombudsman. He had been in slumber in his office for four years, and he finally woke up after being told that RA 11032 has been enacted by Congress.
In all likelihood, Congress may have enacted RA 11032 precisely because he has been sleeping on his job as the Ombudsman.
Now that there is an agency created by Congress to address the red tape problem in the government bureaucracy, here comes Martires questioning the constitutionality of the law creating that agency, after a long nap while on duty.
Is RA 11032 unconstitutional as Martires claims? It does not appear to be so.
Although the Office of the Ombudsman is created by the Constitution, there is nothing in the charter which explicitly states that the power of the Ombudsman to address red tape concerns is exclusively vested in the Ombudsman. This suggests that there is no constitutional impediment against Congress enacting RA 11032.
The mere fact that the Office of the Ombudsman is an agency created by the Constitution does not necessarily warrant the conclusion that only the Ombudsman may investigate inefficiency in the civil service.
For example, the Civil Service Commission is vested by Section 3, Article IX of the Constitution with the power to adopt measures that will, among others, promote efficiency in the civil service.
The Local Government Code also contains provisions allowing local government units to do away with inefficiency in their offices.
At the end of the day, if Martires had only stayed awake while he was in office, and taken steps to address red tape in the bureaucracy early enough during his tenure, Congress may not have seen the need to enact RA 11032.
Under existing laws governing the Office of the Ombudsman, he is legally obligated to carry out all of the duties required of his office. Public interest demands that he should fulfill those duties.
His inaction on red tape in the bureaucracy, which is a duty of his office, constitutes a betrayal of the public trust. That is a ground for his removal from office by impeachment pursuant to Section 2, Article XI of the Constitution.
Before making untenable public statements against RA 11032, he should first explain why he miserably failed to establish an anti-red tape system during the four slothful years he has been the Ombudsman.