PIMENTEL ASSAILS SELECTIVE PROSECUTION OF
ERRING LOCAL EXECS WITH GMA FOES AS TARGETS

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said it is the duty of government to punish elective public officials who have committed graft but deplored the apparent selective manner this is being done under the Arroyo administration by targeting governors or mayors identified with the opposition.

Pimentel was bothered by reports that certain local chief executives like Peewee Trinidad of Pasay City and Gov. Neil Tupaz of Iloilo were dismissed or suspended on order of the Office of the Ombudsman with little or no regard to due process that is guaranteed by the Constitution.

What is troubling is that the disciplining orders seem to target local officials who are with the opposition or are threat to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyos partisan machinery in the province, city or municipality concerned.

Pimentel said there would be less cause for public anxiety if suspensions cut across the political divide. However, as of now, he said the Ombudsmans tinted glasses see mainly the alleged corrupt opposition officials or those who threaten Macapagal-Arroyos hegemony.

It is as if the Ombudsman sees corruption with tinted glasses. Certain local officials who continue to lick the boots of the administration are spared from the so-called surge of cleansing by the GMA administration, he said.

There are many other local officials who are supposedly denied their right to seek vindication by their constituents in the forthcoming elections. The DILG/Ombudsman cannot deprive them of that right. Only the courts can do that by final judgment.