The Ombudsman Supplemental Resolution – A Tragedy of Errors

The Supplemental Resolution of the Ombudsman exonerating the COMELEC Commissioners and BAC members and the private individuals involved from any criminal and administrative liability is a resolution riddled with errors.

A careful evaluation of said resolution yielded the following very serious and disturbing errors:

1.In conducting the clarificatory hearings and carrying out further investigation, the investigating panel is mistaken in its stated objective “to determine criminal liability of public and private respondents.”

2.The Ombudsman is making an issue on the non-appearance of the complainants when it should not have, in any way, affected the determination of the existence of probable cause.

3.The Ombudsman ruled on matters that are supposed to be ruled upon by the Courts, specifically, the Sandiganbayan.

4.The Ombudsman totally disregarded the findings of the Supreme Court in the Infotech case. Instead, it came up with its own determination on matters that have already been passed upon by the Supreme Court.

5.The Ombudsman reversed the following SC conclusions in the Infotech case:

a.That Mega Pacific Consortium is not eligible to bid and must have been disqualified by the BAC outright.

b.That the bilateral agreements entered into by Mega Pacific eSolutions separately with SK C&C Co., Ltd., WeSolv Open Computing Inc., Election.com Ltd., and ePLDT do not point to any joint and several undertaking to constitute a joint venture arrangement among the parties.

c.That the machines flunked the technical evaluation on certain crucial criteria.

6.The Ombudsman relied heavily on evidence presented by the respondents during the public hearings conducted by the investigating panel, disregarding the results of the field investigation officer and the findings of the Supreme Court in the Infotech case.

7.The Ombudsman erred in holding that the BAC has discretion to rule on the eligibility of MPC and in relying on the principle that the courts should not interfere with such exercise of discretion.

8.The Supplemental Resolution misinterpreted Sec. 7 of R.A. No. 8436 as giving the COMELEC the power to disregard or allow certain deviations or deficiencies in weighing the demonstrable capacity of the bidders.

9.The Ombudsman completely reversed its initial determination of probable cause in its Resolution dated June 28, 2006 without any clear basis.

These errors call for rectification, but how do we hope for a rectification when the Office of the Ombudsman has shown manifest partiality to the cause of the respondents, acting as if it is defending instead of prosecuting the officials involved in this controversy?

There lies the tragedy - if "The Protector of the People" turns out as a defender of corruption.