Palace assures fair trial for government prosecutor

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

MANILA — Malacañang has assured a fair trial for Special Prosecutor Wendell Barreras Sulit in its probe into the plea bargain deal government prosecutors entered with a former military comptroller.
Sulit was suspended for 90 days and charged with graft and betrayal of public trust before the Office of the President.
The formal charges were filed before the Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs (Odesla).

The President’s office will investigate Sulit’s possible liability in former military general Carlos Garcia’s plea bargain deal despite facing a P303-million plunder case before the anti-graft court.
“We can assure Special Prosecutor Sulit that she will be accorded due process and fair play in this investigation,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said.
Lacierda said the Office of the President has authority to discipline special prosecutors as granted by the Ombudsman Act.
Sulit was directed to file her answer within 10 days from receipt of the formal charge against her. She was furnished a copy of the formal complaint Tuesday.
“Pending investigation of said charges, respondent (Sulit) is hereby placed under preventive suspension for a period of 90 days, effective upon receipt hereof, considering the seriousness of the charges, the existence of prima facie case against respondent that she is probably guilty thereof which warrants her removal from the service and respondent’s continuance in the office may pose threat to the safety and integrity of the record and other evidence,” read the formal charge released to the media Wednesday.
Malacañang pointed out that Sulit violated existing rules and jurisprudence when she “knowingly and willfully” entered into a plea bargain deal with Garcia.
Garcia has been allowed by the Sandiganbayan to post bail after pleading guilty to a lesser offense of direct bribery as part of the plea bargain agreement.
The Palace alleged that Sulit, together with her deputies, “impaired deliberately the case for the prosecution by ignoring and abandoning evidence favorable to the interest of the government and presenting evidence adverse to its cause.”
It added that Sulit failed to discharge her mandated duty of prosecuting erring public officials with utmost responsibility, integrity and professional competence.
Sulit was also accused of causing undue injury to the government and gave unwarranted benefits to Garcia through “manifest partiality, evident bad faith and gross inexcusable negligence.”
The administrative case against Sulit was an offshoot of an investigation conducted by the committee on justice of the House of Representatives into the plea bargain agreement between the Office of the Ombudsman and Garcia.
The House committee recommended that Sulit be dismissed from service for culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust.
The chairman of the House justice committee lauded Malacañang’s decision, which came almost four months after it passed a resolution recommending Sulit’s dismissal.
“Her preventive suspension is necessary to prevent her from tampering with documents related to the Garcia case,” justice committee chair and Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas Jr. told reporters in a text message.
“We hope that the OP (Office of the President) decides on the main case of removing Prosecutor Sulit for gross negligence and betrayal of public trust soonest so as to give way to a new leadership at the OSP (Office of the Special Prosecutor),” Tupas added.
House justice committee vice chairman Lorenzo Tanada III said the hearings conducted by the panel showed that Sulit “did not do her homework and exposed how lazy their office is in trying to look for additional evidence to pin down the people they are prosecuting.”
A progressive group also welcomed the announcement of the Palace, hoping it would pave the way for a probe on Sulit’s role in other bungled cases, such as the multi-billion peso tax-credit scam involving Faustino and Gloria Chingkoe.
“The Ombudsman has only filed one case so far before the Sandiganbayan and it was dismissed, which we feel may also be due to Sulit’s incompetence,” Renato Reyes, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan secretary general, said in a text message.
Reyes believes that Sulit also allowed Faustino Chingkoe, the main respondent, to leave the country.
“No extradition proceedings have been taken against Faustino Chingkoe who is now in Canada. No forfeiture of assets has been undertaken as well,” he noted.
Last March, the Sandiganbayan dismissed the P74-million plunder case against the Chingkoes over their alleged involvement in a tax credit fraud.
Senator Teofisto Guingona III, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, also welcomed the filing of graft and betrayal of public trust charges against Sulit.
“This is the way it should be done. The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee comes out with its findings and the Executive branch of government implements the recommendations so that justice is achieved,” he said.
A committee report that he sponsored on the Senate floor last week scored Sulit and other government prosecutors over the plea bargain agreement.
In March, he released a preliminary report that recommended charges against them for their “lack of prosecutorial zeal” on the Garcia case.
“They abandoned the case, they weakened the case, they flip-flopped on the case,” he said then. (Jill Beltran/Kathrina Alvarez/Jonathan de Santos/Sunnex)

Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2011/06/15/palace-assures-fair-trial-government-prosecutor-161355
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