De Lima, Merci clash in House probe on plea bargain deal

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez faced off on Tuesday during a Lower House committee probe, offering contradictory opinions on the plea bargain deal that the Office of the Ombudsman struck with former Armed Forces comptroller Carlos Garcia last year. De Lima, who was invited by the House panel on justice to share her views as head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the controversial agreement that threatened to undermine the plunder case against Garcia, said that the plea bargain deal between Garcia and special prosecutors under Gutierrez had “a bit of irregularity." “If evidence is strong enough in filing of the case, how come that strong evidence became weak? Why was it strong at the time it is being filed and suddenly became weak when the plea bargain was entered?" she asked during the congressional inquiry on Tuesday. Gutierrez, however, insisted that her office’s agreement with Garcia was “legal" and that the special prosecutors represented the Filipino people in the case. “As an independent body of government, we have the evidence ourselves... This is position I hold and I have taken this position," she said. De Lima, however, said that Gutierrez and her deputies should have consulted other government agencies, as well as the military, before entering the deal, because the case involved public funds allocated for use by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). “It is not right to mix up prosecutor and prosecution representation. This is case-to-case basis. There should be a strict practice on this. Plunder involves public funds, and we cannot say that the people are just represented by the government," the justice secretary said. De Lima likewise proposed before the House panel to create a “composite team" of prosecutors, not just from the Office of the Ombudsman but from other agencies as well, to handle Garcia’s case if the plea bargain deal is junked by Sandiganbayan. Garcia is being tried for the crime of plunder by the Sandiganbayan, the Philippines’ anti-graft court. Agreeing that the court has the final say on the matter, Gutierrez insisted that as head of a constitutionally independent body, she will not bow down to opinions from the Department of Justice (DOJ). “Lahat pinag-uusapan natin nakadepende sa ruling ng Sandiganbayan. Kung ano po ang sabihin ng korte, yun po ang aming papaniwalaan at hindi ‘yung nanggagaling sa DOJ," she said. (All our discussions here depend on the Sandiganbayan ruling. Whatever the court says, that’s what we will believe and not that which comes from the DOJ.) Last year, special prosecutors from the Office of the Ombudsman entered into a plea bargain agreement with Garcia, who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of direct bribery and money laundering instead of the crime of plunder as part of the deal. After admitting to these offenses, the ex-comptroller was allowed to post bail and to temporarily walk out of jail in December last year. The former AFP comptroller was also allowed to return only P135 million out of the P303 million he allegedly stole from government coffers. The Office of the Solicitor General, an agency attached to the DOJ, has earlier asked the Sandiganbayan to allow it to intervene in the controversial deal and to nullify Garcia’s arraignment for direct bribery.—JV, GMA News