The Office of the Ombudsman on Thursday confirmed that the fact-finding or field investigation on the complaint filed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV against President Duterte has been closed and terminated.
In a news statement, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales said the investigation against the President was terminated on November 29, 2017, after the Anti-Money Laundering Council declined to provide a report or confirmation on the requested data.
“By rule, [a] closed and terminated field investigation is without prejudice to the refiling of a complaint with new or additional evidence,” Morales, however, said. In his complaint, Trillanes said Duterte has ill-gotten wealth amounting to millions of pesos.
Morales confirmed the termination of probe against the Chief Executive, two days after Solicitor General Jose Calida announced the probe closure on Tuesday.
“It has come to [our] knowledge from the press briefing of Solicitor General Jose Calida conducted the other day that he has been informed of the closure and termination of the investigation, through a February 12, 2018, letter-response to his letter-inquiry dated February 8, 2018 addressed to Overall Deputy Ombudsman [ODO] Melchor Arthur Carandang,” Morales said.
The recommendation to terminate the probe was approved by Deputy Ombudsman Cyril Ramos on November 29, 2017.
Morales, meanwhile, slammed Calida after questioning the Ombudsman’s “silence” on the closure of the investigation.
“He [Calida] asked why the Ombudsman kept quiet about the matter. Oddly, he himself pointed out that the Ombudsman had inhibited herself from the investigation. The solicitor general might want to consider whether it is proper for an official who inhibited from an investigation to remain involved therein,” Morales’ statement added.
“In fact, the Ombudsman learned about such closure and termination only on January 29, 2018, upon an inquiry on the status thereof after learning that ODO Carandang was formally charged and placed under preventive suspension by the Office of the President,” she added.
The Ombudsman also told Calida that her office’s thrust that in the conduct of fact-finding investigations, efforts are exhausted to gather evidence and to comply with internal rulesthat are generally confidential in nature.
“The office is not obliged to inform the subject of the fact-finding investigation about its outcome. The confidentiality of proceedings was, in fact, recognized by the solicitor general when he cited the exception that the Ombudsman has the power to publicize certain matters. The Ombudsman could not have considered exercising such discretionary power relative to the complaints against the President due to her inhibition,” Morales’s office said.
Meanwhile, she said her office observes that the solicitor general effectively recognized Carandang as the ODO.
“His official letter-inquiry dated February 8, 2018 addressed to ODO Carandang who, at such date, had been supposedly under preventive suspension. The office sees this as a recognition of the unconstitutionality of the preventive suspension order,” Morales added.
Last month Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea ordered Carandang suspended, but Morales defied the Palace order, saying the Office of the Ombudsman is beyond the Palace’s jurisdiction.