Former Ombudsman Samuel Martires on Friday stood firm that his 2019 decision to reverse the dismissal of then CIBAC party-list representative Joel Villanueva, which was ordered by then Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales in 2016, was no secret.
“My acts were transparent…There was no secret decision,” Martires said in an interview with ANC. He was responding to the recent statement of his successor Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla.
“In fact, we furnished Senate President Vicente Sotto III (a copy of) the decision. You can check on that,” he added. Sotto also led the upper chamber from 2018 to 2022 under the 18th Congress.
Martires argued that while his decisions were a matter of public record, he was not duty-bound to announce it. He said the same is true for the Supreme Court, Office of the Solicitor General, or the prosecutors working for the Department of Justice.
“The Ombudsman, of course, is mandated to be transparent. No doubt about it. Any government office under the Constitution is mandated to be transparent… It is not the function of the Ombudsman to be conducting every day a press conference, announcing that this is what I did,” he said.
“Probably my predecessor was doing it (making public announcements), my successor is doing that in press conferences… (But) I do not want to be glorified at the expense of people whose guilt are not yet determined by the court because the function of the Ombudsman is just to determine probable cause for purposes of filing an information in court,” Martires added.
