JUSTICE Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II is considering filing a complaint against Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña for making unsubstantiated claims that he is accepting bribes.
Speaking to Palace reporters on Tuesday, March 20, Aguirre slammed Osmeña for hurling accusations at him without evidence.
"The problem with Mayor Osmeña, he persistently says, 'I am sure, Secretary Aguirre is accepting grease money.' Where is his evidence? I will file a case against him," the Justice secretary said.
Aguirre's remark was in response to Osmeña's plan to file a graft complaint against the former for purportedly meddling in the cases filed by the Cebu City government against SM Prime Holdings Inc. and BDO Unibank Inc., retail and banking units under the SM Group.
Asked what charges he would file against the Cebu City official, Aguirre said, "You will get to know it."
In November 2016, Osmeña filed criminal charges against four officials of SM Prime for alleged misrepresentation of the SM Seaside City Cebu's building size.
Also, Osmeña In January 2017 lodged a complaint before the Office of the City Prosecutor against BDO Magallanes-Plaridel branch for alleged tax fraud after the bank declared a gross annual revenue of P400,000 in 2016.
Osmeña reportedly slammed Aguirre for acting as the "lawyer" of BDO Unibank and SMPHI in the criminal cases against the two commercial giants.
Aguirre, however, said he is merely wielding his power to transfer the authority of handling of cases, especially if "danger [to] national security" or "miscarriage of justice" prevail.
"I'm not meddling. I'm exercising my power as a Secretary of Justice... The power of Secretary of Justice is very broad. In danger [to] national security or to prevent miscarriage of justice, I can consider these two to exercise the power to transfer or the power to get the cases," he said.
"In this case, you know that in Cebu, there have been a rift between the Office of teh Mayor and the SM. And the other group there are saying that some of the prosecutors are under the influence of some local officials," Aguirre added. (SunStar Philippines)