Morales calls out aspiring Ombudsman for calling her office graft-ridden

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales on Wednesday lashed out at defense lawyer Edna Batacan — touted to be the front-runner in the search for a new graft buster — for describing her office as graft-ridden.

Morales said the remarks of Batacan — a former antigraft prosecutor — during the latter’s interview with the Judicial and Bar Council last Wednesday was “like a slap in the face.”

“Excuse me, why don’t we look at each other’s records? Come on,” Morales said in an online interview. “They say there’s a lot of corruption. Come on, come up with evidence.”

“I’m so incensed,” she added. “Of course, I’m insulted, for them to say the Ombudsman is corrupt.”

Morales could not even bring herself to mention Batacan’s name, but she used feminine pronouns to refer to the lone female aspirant for her office.

Ties that bind

As a defense lawyer, Batacan won the acquittal of President Rodrigo Duterte, former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and even now-accused pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles in the corruption cases she handled.

Their cases involved the demolition of a Davao City canal project, the scuttled $329-million National Broadband Network deal with China’s ZTE Corp., and the controversial P3.8-million Kevlar helmet deal, respectively.

Those ties worry the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), whose president, Edre Olalia, said on Friday that Batacan’s emergence as the strongest candidate for Ombudsman “invites a lot of questions and concerns” over the independence of the graft buster.

“Close professional, political and personal ties to the appointing power or any of its circle and network undermine the trust and confidence in the credibility in the system of accountability and justice. Will the ties that bind not stand in the way?” Olalia said.

‘Parking fee’

During her JBC interview, Batacan claimed the Ombudsman investigators were paid a “parking fee” to sit on cases.

Prolonging the preliminary investigation stage means that when the case reaches the court, it can be easily dismissed without trial on the ground of “inordinate delay.”

Batacan also admitted to being involved in a P50,000 payoff “just to get the status of the case.”

Justifying this, she said: “You have to please your client… They say to play along with their [Ombudsman’s] music… just so the clients’ [cases] would end.”

In response, Morales said: “If you are party to corruption, you are corrupt yourself.”

The JBC would submit a short list of nominees from which Mr. Duterte would appoint the country’s sixth Ombudsman to a seven-year term.

Morales will finish her term on July 25.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said last Wednesday that he believed Batacan was the front-runner for the Ombudsman post, along with Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Martires and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III. —With a report from Melvin Gascon

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