The wheels of justice continue to turn. Last Nov. 21, the Court of Appeals ordered the Ombudsman to investigate former Secretaries of Justice Vitaliano Aguirre II and Menardo Guevarra for granting state witness status and immunity to convicted criminals in violation of the Witness Protection Law.
Previously, the Ombudsman peremptorily dismissed the criminal and administrative cases I filed against the two, without even conducting an investigation or asking them to answer the complaint. I appealed the administrative aspect of the complaint to the Court of Appeals and the criminal aspect to the Supreme Court. Hopefully, the SC will also decide favorably soon.
I filed the complaint with the Ombudsman in Oct. 2018 and appealed the Ombudsman decision dismissing my complaint in Nov. 2020 with the CA and the following month with the SC.
With the reversal of the Ombudsman dismissal by the CA, I expect the Ombudsman to now conduct a full investigation of both Aguirre and Guevarra or, at the very least, to require Guevarra to answer the administrative aspect of the case and defend his role in propping up criminal convicts as state witnesses even if they are disqualified from being granted immunity under the law.
