Questions raised by SC decision on Ong’s dismissal

That the Supreme Court has finally come out with a decision dismissing Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Gregory Ong is very welcome news (“SC sacks Napoles justice,” Front Page, 9/24/14). But before we fall all over each other in praising the high court, look at the way the votes went: eight for, five against, and two abstentions. What does that tell the public?

The case that did Ong in was about the delivery of substandard (what else is new?) Kevlar helmets to the Philippine Marines. The substandard helmets cost government a total of P3.8 million in 1998. His division acquitted Janet Lim Napoles, her husband and several other coaccused who thereby got to keep their loot intact.

The basic standard that judges and justices are held up to has always been: Like Caesar’s wife, they must be above suspicion. What were the five dissenters (Supreme Court Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco, Jose Perez,  Jose Mendoza, Lucas Bersamin and Bienvenido Reyes) thinking? Photos showing Ong in the company of Napoles and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, taken together with the undisputed testimony about him visiting the office of Napoles at least twice, meant nothing to them? (It should not be forgotten that it was Jinggoy’s father, former president Joseph Estrada, who unabashedly appointed him to the Supreme Court. That’s how chummy he was with the Estradas, as well.) As suspicions go, anyone with a modicum of common sense could add two and two together!

On the other hand, what were Supreme Court Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo de Castro and Diosdado Peralta thinking? By inhibiting purportedly because they were once also justices of the Sandiganbayan, are they saying they could not rise in judicial statesmanship above their association with Ong? Given the magnitude of the scam, did they not feel morally compelled to rally behind the public clamor and outcry for justice?

And what about the Sandiganbayan associate justices who, together with Ong, trashed the Kevlar case and made this country poorer still by millions of pesos? What kind of “influence” did Ong exert on them? These are questions that bug the public and gnaw into their confidence in the judiciary.

—JANNO M. MONTECRISTO,
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