CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Bataan Gov. Enrique Garcia has blamed Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez for the graft case filed against him at the Sandiganbayan last Thursday in connection with a compromise agreement reached in 2006 between the provincial government and the Presidential Commission on Good Government on a property sequestered by the latter from a brother of former First Lady Imelda Marcos.
“Unang-una the Ombudsman has an axe to grind against me kasi sinisisi niya ako sa pagkatalo ng kanyang kapatid na humabol na mayor sa Samal, Bataan. And because of this, siguro yun ang dahilan. Kahit na kitang kita mo na pilit na pilit yung kasong ito at walang makitang kaso laban sa akin ay ganon nga ginawa (Firstly, the Ombudsman has an axe to grind against me because she blames me for the defeat of her brother who ran as mayor of Samal. And because of this, perhaps that’s the reason. It is obvious because they pressed on with the case and because they could not find any case against me, that’s what they did),” Garcia said in an interview on CLTV 36 Balitaan on Friday.
The governor was referring to Gutierrez’s younger brother, Roselier Navarro.
“This is politics, harassment,” Garcia added.
According to him, the Ombudsman should have dismissed the case at the outset because the compromise agreement was “suggested” by the Supreme Court, approved by the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 147 and upheld by the high court.
But Gutierrez, it turned out, had inhibited herself from the case, according to the notes written by Overall Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro on the copy of the Oct. 15 information filed by graft investigation and prosecution officer Clarisa Tejada at the Sandiganbayan.
“Pursuant to Office Order No. 65 Series of 2008 and inhibition of the Ombudsman,” Casimiro’s notes showed.
Tejada called as “manifestly and grossly disadvantageous” to the provincial government of Bataan the contract entered into by Garcia, former vice governor Benjamin Alonzo and eight provincial board members with the PCGG and the Baseco, Philippine Dockyard Corp. and the Baseco Drydock and Construction Inc.
Garcia said the provincial government got hold of the 300-hectare property in 1988 as it tried to recover payments of real property taxes from those companies owned by Bejo Romualdez. It next auctioned the property but this was not redeemed by the PCGG in a year’s time.
The case filed by the PCGG in 1993 to recover the property from the provincial government reached the Supreme Court in 2000.
Tejada said that in the compromise agreement, the provincial government and the Baseco would have 51-percent and 49-percent, respectively, in the shares of the corporation.
However, the transfer of the province’s eight parcels of lands to that corporation “effectively reduced” the ownership of the province “by as much as 49 percent.”
The transfer to Baseco of proceeds from rentals through the P60 million held in escrow by the court and sharing scheme with the PCGG on behalf of Baseco on all the succeeding rentals or fruits derived from the properties are to the “damage and prejudice” of Bataan.
Garcia said the Ombudsman’s information implied that the Supreme Court, the RTC and the PCGG were also “guilty.”
