By CARMELA FONBUENAabs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak First, it was Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez who was asked to inhibit from the Ombudsman investigation on the botched broadband deal with Chinese supplier company ZTE Corp. because of her close relations with the First Couple. Second, it was deputy Omb

By CARMELA FONBUENA
abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak

First, it was Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez who was asked to inhibit from the Ombudsman investigation on the botched broadband deal with Chinese supplier company ZTE Corp. because of her close relations with the First Couple.

Second, it was deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro because he headed an earlier panel that cleared former Commission on Elections chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. of the agency’s controversial multimillion dollar computerization project with MegaPacific Corp. Abalos is a respondent in the various complaints on the botched deal, too.

President Arroyo and her husband, Jose Miguel, are respondents in various complaints filed before the investigating body for their alleged involvement in the controversial project. Gutierrez served as President Arroyo’s chief legal counsel for a time and was a classmate of the First Gentleman in law school.

Both Gutierrez and Casimiro have since left the panel, although Casimiro will approve the panel’s recommendations after the investigation. The office of the Ombdudsman has consolidated all cases on the botched deal and has been conducting public hearings since February.

Now, complainants are calling for the inhibition of four more members of the reconstituted Ombudsman panel. It’s almost the entire panel, which consists of only five members.

Military ombudsmen
 

Civil society groups Kilosbayan and Bantay Katarungan led by former Senator Jovito Salonga will file before the Ombudsman today an urgent motion to disqualify four of the five members of the panel—deputy Ombudsman Emilio Gonzalez III, and other members including deputy special prosecutors Robert Kallos and Roberto Elman, and director Caesar Asuncion—for the simple reason that they are all members of the "military establishment."

Salonga told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak that Gonzalez should not head the investigating panel because "we (complainants) are not members of the military. Neither is President Arroyo, except in the limited capacity as Commander in Chief [of the Armed Forces of the Philippines ]. The complaints have nothing to do with her being the Commander in Chief."

Gonzalez is the deputy Ombudsman for the military and other law enforcement offices (MOLEO). The groups have filed a plunder case against President Arroyo in the Office of the Ombudsman. Their case is expected to be consolidated with eight other currently under investigation.

Citing Section 5 of Article XI in the 1987 Philippine Constitution, the motion said that "the designation of this panel runs counter to the constitutional prescription that ‘a separate deputy for the military establishment may likewise be appointed."

It is imperative that the [four members of the panel] inhibit themselves and/or be disqualified outright," the motion stated.

All the original five members of the investigating panel will all have left the probe if this new motion will be granted. Deputy special prosecutor Jesus Micael is the latest addition to the panel after Casimiro left.

Akbayan’s grudge
 

Akbayan does not favor Gonzalez as panel chairman, too. The party-list group’s representative in the House of Representatives, Risa Hontiveros, is one of the complainants against Abalos on the botched deal.

In a statement posted on its web site, Akbayan said that Gonzalez has the "penchant to side with the administration" because he once "favored" the Philipine National Police when Hontiveros charged the agency for illegally arresting her in a women’s day protest rally in 2006.

"The dismissal of the case was affirmed by the deputy Ombudsman, which claimed that Rep. Hontiveros was merely put in ‘involuntary protective custody’ and not arrested. The case was a clear harassment of anti-GMA protestors by the government, and yet the deputy Ombudsman was quick to support the government," said Akbayan lawyer Ibarra Gutierrez III in the statement.

It was Ombudsman Gutierrez who appointed Gonzalez as deputy Ombudsman in 2006.