The Office of the President is grossly mistaken when it based the suspension of Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang on a mere conjecture or vain hope that the Supreme Court will reverse the decision in the Gonzales case wherein it was ruled that the President has no disciplinary authority over the deputies of the Ombudsman.

The decisions of the Supreme Court are part of the law of the land, which the President is sworn to protect and uphold.

In its 2014 decision the High Court held that Sec. 8(2) of the Ombudsman Law (RA No. 6770) is unconstitutional when it granted the President the power to dismiss the Overall Deputy Ombudsman.

Moreover, no less than Sec. 5 of Article XI of the 1987 Constitution mandates the creation of “the independent Office of the Ombudsman, composed of the Ombudsman to be known as Tanodbayan, one overall Deputy and at least one Deputy each for Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. A separate Deputy for the military establishment may likewise be appointed.”

The prevailing jurisprudence, law and constitutional provision do not empower the President to dismiss, suspend, or impose disciplinary sanctions against the Ombudsman’s deputies.

In the Gonzales case, the Supreme Court emphasized that “subjecting the Deputy Ombudsman to discipline and removal by the President, whose own alter egos and officials in the Executive Department are subject to the Ombudsman’s disciplinary authority, cannot but seriously place at risk the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman itself.”

The Supreme Court also pronounced that “[w]hat is true for the Ombudsman must be equally and necessarily true for her Deputies who act as agents of the Ombudsman in the performance of their duties.”

EDCEL C. LAGMAN