Gov. Edgar Chatto has no pending administrative or criminal charges, officially according to the Ombudsman in a clearance it even issued two months after the supposed resolution last year reversing the dismissal of the joint venture (JV). The clearance issued by the Ombudsman on October 2, 2013 stated that Chatto, as of September 27 of the same year, had “no pending criminal and administrative cases” with the said office. Similar clearances were also issued to him by the Sandiganbayan, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Civil Service Commission (CSC).

The Ombudsman officially cleared the governor even almost eight weeks or two months after a subordinate, assistant prosecutor supposedly already prepared and signed on August 5, 2013 the resolution junking the dismissal of the JV case. The resolution, penned by Assistant Special Prosecutor Fay Isaguirre-Singson, who has since resigned, surprisingly reversed the Ombudsman ruling on the dismissal of the case without any motion for reconsideration from the complainants. The dismissal order was approved by the Ombudsman as early as 2008 and no reconsideration motion to reverse the ruling has ever been filed until today.

The complainants against the joint venture, a water and power improvement partnership between the provincial government and private investor Salcon now benefiting Tagbilaran City and nearby localities, have included lawyer and former OIC Gov. Victor de la Serna. De la Serna was himself surprised by the new Ombudsman resolution, which was approved just in August this year, without any reconsideration motion they have ever filed, bolstering suspicion of some political hands behind yet unseen. Observing proper course, Chatto, Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim, Provincial Board Member Tomas Abapo, Jr. and former Board Members Felix Uy and Isabelito Tongco filed their motion for reconsideration as they questioned the resolution “procedurally and substantially.”

They were among the respondents, together with then governor and now Rep. Rene Relampagos, of the otherwise dismissed JV case yet suddenly revived. Relampagos also assailed the resolution in his separate reconsideration motion. The rest include former board members also---although some have long been dead but still named in the “amazing” resolution to be charged with graft, as well as former Provincial Attorney Inocentes Lopez and Salcon president Dennis Villareal. Also a dead respondent was the late Provincial Planning and Development Officer Juanito Cambangay. Relampagos feared that the sudden twist in the long judicially-settled case after many years even without any reconsideration motion to review or reverse the approved dismissal order could cause a “dangerous precedent.”

DISMISSAL FINALAND EXECUTORY

In their motions, Relampagos, Chatto and company argued that the Ombudsman-Visayas ruling, dated February 22, 2001, dismissing the JV case and approved by then Acting Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro on July 2, 2008 has long attained finality. This is because there has been no motion for reconsideration of the dismissal order ever filed by the complainants since 2008 up to the issuance of the new resolution. Therefore, the dismissal order has long become final and executory, they asserted in their motions filed on Monday, September 22, and beating the five-day period to submit their counter moves.

ANOTHER PROOF

Like Chatto's clearance from the Ombudsman, another proof that the case has no longer been in the dockets of the Ombudsman is the clearance it issued to ex-Board Member Uy on July 22, 2009 or a year after the case's dismissal in 2008. Uy then asked for an Ombudsman clearance for a lower judicial post he would want to apply. Chatto, on the other hand, was issued Ombudsman clearance when he was nominated last year to the chairmanship of the Regional Development Council in Central Visayas. (Chatto led the RDC full-council meeting in Siquijor on Friday.) The Ombudsman cleared them both of any pending criminal and administrative charges. Hence, it is very ironic and incomprehensible that the clearance, as in the case of the governor, was issued after the resolution, which is now assailed, was supposedly already prepared and signed by the assistant special prosecutor, they said. Further, they argued that the inordinate delay of 13 years---from the time the dismissal resolution was issued by the Ombudsman Visayas in February, 2001---in terminating the preliminary investigation of the instant case is violative of the constitutionally-guaranteed right to due process and speedy disposition of the case.

How it happened that a case was dismissed in 2008 and revived now without a motion for reconsideration filed by the complainants is a “mystery” which, the officials said, is now for the Office of the Ombudsman to look into. Abapo said civil charges were then separately filed with the Regional Trial Court but dismissed and then raised to the Court of Appeals but junked again. These were not cited in the surprising Ombudsman resolution reviving the case. For entering into the JV contract, “we were accused of acting grossly disadvantageous to the government and the people, but I would always think that it was all for gross advantages of the government and the people,” Abapo told the media prior to the Sanggunang Panlalawigan pre-session conference on Friday. He recalled how much the provincial coffers had to subsidize then the poor operation of the inefficient old water and power utilities of the province. “Sabata pa ko, pugson ko'g pabangon sa akong mama sa sayon'g kaadlawon kay pasawron og tubignga kaniadto 15 minutoslang ang agasug puwerte pa gyung hinaya,” Abapo, who was raised in Tagbilaran City, lamented in further recounting. In having taken part of the politically-willful act of public-private partnership that has since solved the extreme water problem in the city, the board member asserted: “What I did was right. What we did was right.” (VenC. Arigo)