PANDEMIC or no pandemic, the Office of the Ombudsman is expected to resolve pending cases with reasonable dispatch or be able to provide acceptable justification where delays are inevitable.
This was the pronouncement made by the Sandiganbayan as it granted a motion by Mexico, Pampanga Mayor Teddy Tumang for the dismissal of charges of graft and malversation of public funds filed against him, municipal accountant Perlita Lagman, planning and development coordinator Marlon Maniacup, budget officer Lucila Agento, engineer Jesus Punzalan, and private secretary to the mayor Luz Bondoc.
The cases filed in two batches in March and July 2022 involved allegations of irregularities in the procurement of construction materials by the municipal government in 2007 and 2008.
In ordering all the cases quashed, the anti-graft court’s Fourth Division noted that almost 15 years have passed between the questioned transactions and the filing of the cases in court.
“The passage of time in the conduct of the preliminary investigation has already adversely affected the defense of the accused. Hence the prejudice and pernicious effect of the inordinate delay that attended the investigation into this case against the accused-movants becomes manifest,” the Sandiganbayan said.
It reminded prosecutors that preventing an impairment of the defense of the respondents is the most serious consideration protected by the right to speedy disposition of cases.
The court noted that in the first batch involving 20 cases, it took the Ombudsman three years and 11 months between the filing of the formal complaint to filing a case in court.
In the second batch of nine cases, the anti-corruption body took four years and three months.
The Sandiganbayan pointed out that the prosecution’s only explanation was the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the court said it was unlikely that the pandemic “has rendered the absolute and complete inability of the Ombudsman to function and perform its mandate of conducting preliminary investigation.”
At best, it can accept that the Ombudsman’s operations may have been hampered where compliance to health protocols caused reduction in manpower capacity.
“The Court is not persuaded that the operations within the (Ombudsman) were at a standstill during the entire length of the period between March 2020 until October 2021,” it stressed.
