15 September 2017•Update: 16 September 2017
By Roy Ramos
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
The Office of the Ombudsman denied the motion. Thursday, filed by former president Benigno Simeon Aquino III.
Instead affirmed his indictment of graft and usurpation of authority over the death of 44 police troopers in a botched anti-terrorists operation in Mamasapano town, Maguindanao province in Southern Philippines in 2015.
"While a President of the Republic is certainly possessed broad discretionary powers, the exercise thereof must not, however, be done in violation of a law or laws, much less when such constitutes a crime," said Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales in a 27-page consolidated order signed on September 11 promulgated on Thursday.
The Ombudsman also upheld the usurpation of authority indictment against Aquino for allowing the participation of suspended Police chief Alan Purisima in Oplan Exodus – police commandos’ plan to neutralize international terrorist Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir also known as Marwan.
was ordered suspended in 2014 for entering into an allegedly anomalous courier service contract with WERFAST Documentary Agency in 2011.
“President Aquino himself has repeatedly admitted and asserted in his counter-affidavit and in the instant motion that he utilized the services of Purisima for Oplan Exodus, albeit he is insisting that it was only for a limited role of a resource person,” said the resolution.
“To this Office, however, the evidence on record regarding the extent of Purisima’s actual participation in Oplan Exodus… shows that he was certainly much more than being a resource person,” it added.
While the operation succeeded in killing Marwan, it led to a fierce gunfight against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters that left 44 police troopers, at least 18members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and five civilians killed.
The Mamasapano fiasco also scuttled the peace process between the Aquino administration and the MILF, the country's largest Muslim rebel group.
Meanwhile, the resolution denied the appeal filed by the surviving kin of the 44 slain troopers, in coordination with the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) to include 44 counts of reckless imprudence resulting to homicide charges against Aquino.
The ombudsman insists that there is no new evidence to warrant the reversal of her original resolution on the homicide charges against Aquino since his negligence cannot be considered as the direct cause of the deaths of the troopers.
Morales ordered the filing of charges against Aquino before the Sandiganbayan – a special court which shall have jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases involving graft and corrupt practices and such other offenses committed by public officers and employees.
Aquino will be the third former president to face criminal trials. Former Presidents Joseph Estrada was convicted of plunder in 2001 but was granted executive clemency by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Meanwhile, Arroyo was charged also plunder in the case was dismissed with finality by the Supreme Court early this year due to insufficient evidence.
