Some senators are divided over the authority of the Ombudsman to dismiss Senator Joel Villanueva for graft.
Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III asked the Senate rules committee, chaired by majority leader Vicente Sotto III, to look into the legitimacy of the Office of the Ombudsman’s power to dismiss Villanueva and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales’ directive to Pimentel to execute the dismissal order.
Sotto had invited Villanueva to attend the hearing his committee would set anytime soon.
“The Ombudsman has become the court and has declared Villanueva guilty,” Sotto said.
The senator pointed out that while section 21 of the Ombudsman Act (Republic Act 6770) states that the Ombudsman has the power to discipline, members of Congress and the Judiciary are exempted from the Ombudsman’s ambit.
But Senate President Pro Tempore Franklin M. Drilon said the Ombudsman took the position that the alleged P10 million pork barrel case against Villanueva was not committed when he was a party-list representative but as a director general of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).
“They realized that as congressman, they had no jurisdiction and they imposed the penalty of dismissal as TESDA director-general and the accessory penalty of perpetual disqualification from holding public office and therefore, in effect, said you can longer be a senator,” Drilon told Senate reporters.
Drilon was former justice secretary during the incumbency of the late President Corazon Aquino.
“To me, it’s a valid case for Senator Villanueva to bring to the Court of Appeals and the issue is the authority of the Ombudsman to make the penalty effective while Villanueva is already a senator,” Drilon added.
The post Senators Mixed if Ombudsman can Fire Villanueva appeared first on Manila Bulletin
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