Palace fires Carandang

After escaping a suspension order from the Palace last January due to a cloak of protection from recently retired Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang was dismissed yesterday for revealing alleged bank transactions of President Rodrigo Duterte and his family.

The decision which was signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said the deputy Ombudsman was “clearly only interested to broadcast an information adverse to the President.”

Carandang’s dismissal also “carries with it cancelation of eligibility, perpetual disqualification from holding public office, bar from taking civil service examinations and forfeiture of retirement benefits.”

Last January, Medialdea issued an order to suspend Carandang for 90 days due to the same offense but Morales, citing the independence of her office as a constitutional body, refused to enforce it.

Morales then said suspending Carandang was “patently unconstitutional” as the Supreme Court (SC), in its en banc decision in Gonzales III vs. Office of the President, declared as illegal the administrative disciplinary jurisdiction of the President over deputy Ombudsmen.

Medialdea said in his decision that Carandang was found liable “under Section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 which penalizes the act of giving any private party any unwarranted benefits, advantages or preference in the discharge of his official administrative or judicial functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross negligence.”

He said the deputy Ombudsman also violated Section 7 of RA 6713 “on disclosure and/or misuse of confidential information” in order to give undue advantage to opposition and Duterte’s critic Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.

“These transgressions of respondent Carandang constitute graft and corruption as well as betrayal of public trust which gravely affects his fitness to remain in public office,” Medialdea stated in his dismissal order.

Carandang was previously named as acting Ombudsman after Morales retired on 27 July but on the same day that his posting was announced, President Duterte named former SC Associate Justice Samuel Martires as Morales’ replacement.

In September last year, Carandang said the Office of the Ombudsman had started looking into the wealth of the President and his family and that it was coordinating with the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).

In a television interview last year, Carandang declared the Office of the Ombudsman acquired evidence of the said ill-gotten wealth in the form of bank transactions records from the AMLC.

But the coordination was denied by the AMLC and stressed that it had not released any report to the Ombudsman as it has yet to evaluate its request for an investigation of the President’s and his family’s bank accounts.

The President and his family have repeatedly denied all accusations and said they did not accumulate ill-gotten wealth.

The Ombudsman’s office confirmed in February that it had terminated the investigation into the President’s wealth last 29 November but only after Solicitor General Jose Calida had announced he had belatedly found out about the decision.

Morales cited the AMLC’s failure to supply information regarding the matter as reason for the termination of the probe on the President’s wealth.

The decision for Carandang’s dismissal stemmed from separate administrative complaints filed by lawyers Manuelito Luna and Eligio Mallari and Jacinto Paras and Glenn Chong in October 2017.