‘Fake opinions’

The Feb. 1 Inquirer carried the news item, “Ombudsman refuses to suspend deputy,” adverting to a Malacañang order to “preventively suspend” Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Carandang for allegedly making public the bank records or accounts of President Duterte in clear violation of bank secrecy laws.

In light of a 2014 Supreme Court ruling striking down a provision in the Ombudsman Act that allows the Office of the President to take disciplinary action against her deputies, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales said that order egregiously violated the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman guaranteed by the Constitution.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was however reported to be “confident” that the Supreme Court will “reverse” its pronouncement on that matter and uphold the order against Carandang.

The former University of the Philippines College of Law professor was grasping at straws in the wind! Even in the remote possibility that the Supreme Court will “reverse” that ruling, it can only apply prospectively, that is to say, to cases after the Carandang conundrum.

That is what happened to the 1959 “condonation doctrine” which used to wipe out all prior administrative liabilities of a public official upon his reelection, that is, by the so-called “sovereign act of forgiveness” by the electorate.

Its express abandonment or “reversal” on grounds of being utterly unconstitutional was declared applicable only “prospectively” (Dimapilis vs Comelec in 2017, reiterating Carpio vs Binay Jr. in 2015).

So much for “fake opinions”?!

STEPHEN L. MONSANTO, Monsanto Law Office, Loyola Heights, Quezon City