Palace mum on ‘technicality’ issue in Senate report on Ombudsman

Malacañang kept mum Saturday on the issue of a possible technicality that may taint a Senate committee’s partial report backing the impeachment of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said the Palace would rather wait until it receives a copy of the Senate blue ribbon committee report before making any comment. “I cannot comment on the matter. We have not received officially the Senate’s pronouncement," Valte said on government-run dzRB radio. She would only say the Palace follows the hearings in the Senate, and is aware of the information senators obtained from the hearings. “But again, having said that, we would like to see the contents of the report as transmitted by the blue ribbon committee," she added. On Friday, Senator Joker Arroyo said the Senate blue ribbon committee report on the alleged culpability of Gutierrez and her prosecutors for betrayal of public trust cannot be elevated to the plenary as most of those who signed it did so “with reservations." Senate blue ribbon committee chairman Teofisto Guingona III, President Benigno Aquino III's party-mate in the Liberal Party, presented the findings to media last Thursday. The report said Gutierrez and the special prosecutors “betrayed the public trust in entering into the plea bargaining agreement with (former military comptroller) Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia," who is facing plunder charges. However, Senator Arroyo said the partial report, signed by 17 senators, does not have the “unqualified vote of the majority of nine senators." Arroyo pointed out that nine signatories have expressed reservations, particularly on the issue of filing another impeachment case against Gutierrez. So far, he said only five senators gave their unqualified votes – Guingona; fellow LP members Francis Pangilinan and Ralph Recto; and Sergio Osmeña III and Antonio Trillanes IV. He said nine signatories – Franklin Drilon, Francis Escudero, Lorna Regina Legarda, Ramon Revilla Jr., Juan Miguel Zubiri, Pilar Juliana and Alan Peter Cayetano, and Manuel Villar Jr. – had expressed “categorical exception or reservation to the impeachment of the Ombudsman." “I myself wrote that ‘I did not participate in the proceedings as to enable me to make any kind of judgment,’" Arroyo said. He was referring to the possibility the senators will become judges once the impeachment process reaches the chamber. — LBG, GMA News