The impeachment complaint filed by former Liberal Party President Jovito Salonga against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez merely reflected the Filipino people’s frustration over the Arroyo administration’s dismal failure to equally apply the law on everyone.
The ouster move initiated by Salonga and the Liberal Party also represented the people’s feelings against the unabated graft and corruption in government caused by the inaction and indifference shown by the Office of the Ombudsman under Merceditas Gutierrez.
The move merely reflected the Filipino people’s frustration over the Arroyo administration’s dismal failure to equally apply the law on everyone. The failure of Ombudsman Gutierrez to implement the equal protection of anti-graft laws has become a public outrage. In most graft cases, the rich and the influential are not charged for their wrongdoings.
We saw the LP admitting it was behind the moves to oust Gutierrez, but it also said that the impeachment complaint filed by several of its members was only part of the party’s “conspiracy" to rid the government of corrupt officials. The party said in a statement that it was calling the ouster move by its members as a “conspiracy for the welfare of the country, for clean governance, and against corruption in government."
We also saw on March 2 that some 31 civil society leader led by Salonga lodge an impeachment complaint against Gutierrez before the House of Representatives for allegedly failing to resolve high-profile cases on her sala.
The LP said it had long been “itching" to make Gutierrez and her supposed “political masters" answerable for the series of controversies that have been hounding the government for several years. The party also said that it was already fed up of the corruption in government, and was determined to kick out anyone who are instigating supposed irregularities in government projects and protecting erring public officials, the statement said. We lament how the Philippines seems to have been losing the respect of other nations due to the string of controversies, one of which was allegedly even discovered not by a local agency but by a foreign entity—the World Bank.