Friday, October 06, 2006 Editorials: Ombudsman’s turnaround
CLEARLY, there is need for openness among those involved in putting to rest the almost three-year-old Commission on Elections (Comelec) modernization case.
The latest report states that an Ombudsman panel has exonerated officials involved in the alleged illegal contract Comelec entered into with the Mega Pacific Consortium for the P1.3 billion election automation deal.
The case was the subject of a Supreme Court decision in early 2004 declaring the contract covering the deal as in violation of law and “Comelec’s bidding rules.”
That decision virtually declared the contract as illegal, thus aborting the effort of the Arroyo government to modernize elections in the country.
Collision course
Yet, more than two years after the ruling was handed down, the Ombudsman—as a separate, supposedly independent government entity—has come up with its own decision on the project.
The move thus places the Ombudsman in a collision course with the High Court, a circumstance that Malacañang itself is trying to steer clear of.
What the Ombudsman had in mind in rendering its aggressive stand is rather difficult to divine.
When released the other day, it reportedly generated an almost instantaneous cry of protest from the concerned public.
For while the decision was based on the recommendation of an Ombusdman panel, it ignored the report of the Ombudsman field investigation office.
Contract
To recall, Comelec entered into the contract in fulfillment of the President’s plan to computerize the elections.
When the SC declared the contract illegal in January 2004, the Ombudsman seemed to abide by the decision, even recommending in June the impeachment of a commissioner of the Comelec and “the filing of charges against some Comelec officials and executives of Mega Pacific.”
But now, the Ombudsman not only reversed its ruling but it also cleared Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos and other officials of any criminal liability.
The situation places against each other two government entities that hold similar judicial authority.
Strange act
But there is something the Ombudsman seems to have done curiously or strangely.
Why did it suddenly come out with a contrary decision on a case that the Supreme Court has long decided on, and which it appears to have accepted in silence?
