OMBUDSMAN Conchita Carpio Morales has admitted being lonelier working at the Supreme Court, where she was associate justice before she was plucked out of retirement to become the country’s graft buster, than at her present office.
But she stressed her enjoyment working alone as a graft-buster.
“The job [Ombudsman] earned me a lot of awards, please pardon my immodesty,” she said, adding she was awarded a doctorate in law from her alma mater, the University of the Philippines, another doctorate from the Ateneo de Manila University and the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award because of her hard work at the Office of the Ombudsman.
“As I said, this position of mine made me a late bloomer,” the Paoay, Ilocos Norte-born graft buster, who studied at the Paoay North Institute, said.
At the Supreme Court, “we are 15 there,” she said, adding “anyone who prepares a ponencia [an assigned essay on the court’s ruling] will always be faced with many dissenting opinions.”
“What you thought of [as] a very good job, turns out to be [not] because of dissenting opinions.”
She said she would reap praises for a decision she had drafted, but “the following day, there are dissenting opinions.”
“Is that not hypocrisy?” she asked.
She said she lived a low-key life, and that she never used any Supreme Court-issued vehicles with license plate no. 9, “unlike the other justices as well as those who have already retired who flaunt using such vehicles.”
According to Morales, she arrives at her office as early as 6:06 a.m. every day “because of the volume of work.”
“If I come [in] late, I would not be able to take part in consultations and attend to emergency problems. Nothing will happen,” she said.
But she was dismayed by the Court of Appeals’ issuance of temporary restraining orders and reversal of her decisions on cases resolved against politicians.
Because of the declaration of two paragraphs of Section 14 of the Ombudsman Act as unconstitutional, “they [politicians] do nothing but seek and seek TROs and go to the CA,” she rued.
“As newspaper reports show, the court issues TROs, then after a few weeks or months, it issues reversal or modification whereas there are cases that are very urgent. It resolves cases that easy while many cases which are even more important remained dormant for years.”
“That is how disappointed we are.”
As far as President Rodrigo Duterte is concerned, she said “I am confident Digong, President Digong, will not (try to) influence me.”
Carpio is the sister of lawyer Lucas Carpio, Jr., father of Manases, the husband of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, Duterte’s daughter.