The 30-day suspension of Overall Ombudsman Melchor Carandang by the Office of the President is a gross violation of the rule of law, which the Duterte administration habitually infringes.

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales must remain steadfast in refusing to enforce the void suspension of her deputy which defies the final Supreme Court decision in the Gonzales case denying the President’s authority to discipline the Ombudsman’s deputies.

The transgression of the rule of law started early in the administration of Duterte with his ongoing deadly and unlawful campaign against the drug menace resulting in extrajudicial killings or summary executions of suspects.

This was followed by Duterte’s campaign for the reimposition of the death penalty which was approved by the House but stalled in the Senate.

Then the President allowed the Marcos family to surreptitiously bury the remains of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani even without the final adjudication by the Supreme Court.

The President also repeatedly threatened to impose a revolutionary government without any constitutional and factual basis.

All of these violations of the rule of law caused the steep fall of the Philippines by 18 notches in the 2017-2018 Rule of Law Index recently released by the World Justice Project (WJP).

The score of the Philippines “places it at 13 out of 15 countries in the East Asia and Pacific Region and 17 out of 30 among lower-middle income countries”, according to WJP.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN