• Office of Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman
• 0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137
• Official Website: http://www.edcellagman.com.ph
• 10 December 2010

          President Aquino does not have to imprint his own logo in the campaign against corruption by inventing and saving an infirm “Truth Commission”.

          The Supreme Court scuttled the commission as unconstitutional for violating the equal protection clause safeguarded by the Constitution and has referred to it as an “adventure in partisan hostility” and “a vehicle for vindictiveness and selective retribution.”

          If the President is in earnest in his avowed crusade, he should not have wasted six months in fanfare and sloganeering, but from day one of his administration should have immediately marshaled the awesome resources of government against suspected culprits by filing appropriate complaints before the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the Ombudsman.

          The Ombudsman and the DOJ are the existing institutions mandated by the Constitution and statutes to investigate and prosecute those who have committed venalities in government service.

          The functions of these existing agencies need not be duplicated by the “Truth Commission” even as the commission itself is tasked to secure the assistance of both the DOJ and the Ombudsman.

          There is no need to involve these agencies in the work of the commission when they can discharge their jurisdiction independently.

          The DOJ and the Ombudsman need not wait for the recommendations of the commission which can drag its investigations up to the expiration of its existence on December 31, 2012, while both agencies can now act with dispatch and alacrity over complaints filed or to be filed before them.