Unless reversed by the Supreme Court, the prevailing jurisprudence in Gonzales vs. Office of the President is that the President has no authority to remove, suspend, or discipline the deputies of the Ombudsman.

Without the said decision being first overturned, President Rodrigo Duterte is obligated to enforce and uphold its validity and efficacy, not to subvert it by suspending Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Carandang.

Moreover, the state of jurisprudence is that Section 8(2) of the Ombudsman Law (RA No. 6770) remains unconstitutional for erroneously granting the President the power to dismiss said deputies.

The President’s apologists, like Presidential Legal Adviser Salvador Panelo, are grossly mistaken when they assert that the suspension of Carandang enjoys the presumption of regularity.

Since the subject suspension defies the final decision of the Supreme Court in the Gonzales case, the suspension of Carandang by the Office of the President is void ab initio or invalid from the start, and is devoid of any shade of regularity.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN