It was the first time I saw Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez speak before a media forum and she responded to journalists? queries with fire, emotion and at times, rage. In fact, she was in a fighting mood when she appeared, together with Deputy Ombudsman Mark Jalandoni, at the Newsstand Forum at the Ambassador Hotel in Malate two weeks ago.

In contrast to her usual disposition of being subdued and reserved whenever she is under fire, Gutierrez was seething with anger as she fired back at her critics who were calling for her resignation or removal.  To former Cabinet members and other high-ranking government officials who were asking for her head, she asked ?what have they done to fight corruption when they were in power??

She railed back at Karina Constantino-David, former chairman of the Civil Service Commission, whom she accused of sitting on appointment papers from various state agencies, including the Office of the Ombudsman during her term.  Turning to Teresita Deles, former presidential adviser on the peace process, she blurted out that the peace effort did not advance but was set back when the former was overseeing the negotiations with community and Muslim insurgents. 

 Gutierrez claimed that another nemesis, Christian Monsod, former chairman of the Commission on Elections, had an ax to grind against her over her decision in the case of the voided poll automation contract with the Mega Pacific. Monsod, she said, was identified with one of the losing bidders. And so was Augusto Lagman, one of the complainants in the Mega Pacific case and incorporator of an information technology outfit that also failed to bag the project.

The Ombudsman likewise asked whether some leaders of the Makati Business Club have the moral authority to seek her ouster.  She said if there is rampant anomalies at the Bureau of Customs, the businessmen, including MBC members, are partly to blame. ?Who are corrupting the officials and personnel of the BoC? What have they done to police their ranks? Nothing.?

Gutierrez said she informed the MBC of her availability to speak before the group and confront the issues club members have raised against her. However, she got no response.

Gutierrez was acting secretary of Justice when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo  appointed  her Ombudsman in  2005 to  replace  Simeon Marcelo who quit to return to private law practice. She led a rather quiet life at the Department of Justice where she rose from the ranks. Her choice as head of a constitutional office tasked with investigating and prosecuting graft and corruption charges sparked a furor because of her perceived closeness with First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, her law classmate at the Ateneo.

Repeatedly, she has been raked over the coals for allegedly sitting on graft cases, big and small, that have been lodged with her office.  When she assumed office, she inherited 21,000 cases but she said 18,000 of them have been disposed.  She also boasted of having launched the most number of anti-corruption projects to clean up the government bureaucracy, with funding assistance from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

As chief graft buster, she faced her first acid test when her office investigated the P1.3-billion contract awarded by the Comelec to Mega Pacific for the purchase of 1,100 Korean-made automated vote-counting machines.  The machines were intended for the May 2004 elections but were not used because of a Supreme Court decision to void the contract on ground that it suffered from  legal infirmities and the voting machines fell short of technical specifications.

At first, the Ombudsman decided to recommend the filing of graft charges against then-senior Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra, several middle-level Comelec officials and executives-incorporators of Mega Pacific. Borra was the commissioner in-charge of the poll automation project.  Later, the decision was amended by the agency by exonerating Borra and subordinate election officials. Naturally, this instantly provoked public outrage and suspicion of a grand coverup. Was Gutierrez pressured by Malaca?ang to let Borra and company get off the hook?

The Ombudsman?s decision appeared to defy the high court?s order to initiate criminal charges and prosecute the perpetrators of the alleged automation scam. At the Newstand Forum, Gutierrez explained that her investigators, after long and meticulous scrutiny of the evidence and facts of the case, found the allegations of overpricing of the voting machines and of bribery against the respondents to be weak.  It was former Comelec Chairman Alfredo Benipayo himself who came up with the explosive and widely-publicized statement that the contract was grossly overpriced. But when the Ombudsman probe panel summoned Benipayo to the public hearing to substantiate his allegation, he did not show up.

In justifying the Ombudsman?s unpopular decision on the case, Gutierrez said they could not bring it to the Sandiganbayan for prosecution and trial without solid evidence. And it would be patently unfair to run after innocent individuals in court, armed with nothing more than a pack of innuendoes.  The decision was supposed to have been reviewed by the Supreme Court, but up to now, it has not given its final word on the case. The Ombudsman?s verdict has not been overturned.

The Ombudsman came under severest attack over its handling of the P728-million fertilizer fund scam.  The Senate committee on agriculture and the Blue Ribbon committee in the 13th Congress had transmitted their findings and recommendations to the Ombudsman more than three years ago. But why has the anti-graft agency dilly-dallied in deciding on the case involving the allegedly illegal diversion of agricultural fund to Mrs. Arroyo?s election campaign in 2004? Gutierrez and Jalandoni explained that the investigation took a long time because of the tedious process of gathering the testimonial and factual evidence from congressmen, local government officials, farmers and leaders of non-government organizations in the field.

Jalandoni said a special team, called Task Force Abono, has already wrapped up its probe and its report has been submitted to Ombudsman Gutierrez, including a recommendation to prosecute a number of personalities. The pressure for the Ombudsman to act on the case has built up following the completion last month of the second part of the Senate probe on the irregularity, undertaken by the Blue Ribbon committee in the 14th Congress, chaired by Senator Richard Gordon. The panel, in its l30-page report, held that there was overwhelming evidence to prosecute 11 individuals, led by former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante, for plunder and money laundering. Gutierrez has promised to come up with a decision on the celebrated case in the first week of March.

Gutierrez finds herself mired deeper in the vortex of controversy after the alleged rigging of World Bank-funded road construction projects recently erupted into a full-blown controversy. The bank, through its sanctions board and integrity office, sent a referral or summary report to the Officc of the Ombudsman in November 2007. Again, the Ombudsman was accused of sleeping on the job for allegedly failing to get to the bottom of the scandal. Was it because the First Gentleman was implicated in the case? Senator Panfilo Lacson claimed that Mr. Arroyo was in cahoots with Eduardo de Luna, owner of one of the three Filipino construction firms accused of collusive practices for which they were blacklisted by the bank.

In her defense, Gutierrez said that she lost no time in ordering her probers to look into the alleged manipulation of road contract bidding. But she said they were hamstrung by the bank?s failure to provide a list of witnesses and other pieces of evidence obtained from its own probe. Moreover, she said the bank was very specific in saying that the referral report could not be used by the Ombudsman for the purpose of initiating court action against the respondents.  It was only last month that the Ombudsman received from the bank voluminous documents, including transcripts of interviews with the witnesses.

f_maragay@yahoo.com