BY JP LOPEZ

THE Senate Blue Ribbon committee has recommended plunder charges against former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn "Joc Joc" Bolante and eight others in connection with the P728 million fertilizer fund mess.

Panel chair Sen. Richard Gordon said President Arroyo, by an act of omission, committed the same crimes of her underlings.

Gordon made the recommendation as he formally submitted the panel’s 130-page preliminary report after eight public hearings.

Gordon said that while the committee may have found no evidence to directly link the President to the scam, the acts of Bolante, DA Undersecretary Belinda Gonzales, and GSIS vice president Ibarra Poliquit "are deemed acts of the President."

"Since there was no reprobation or disapproval coming from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regarding their actions, it can be easily inferred that the President acquiesced to such acts," the report said.

"Does anyone really believe that Bolante et al. would have been able to malverse such a gargantuan amount and continue to evade all sorts of liability without the acquiescence of Malacañang?" the summary report added.

Gordon said President Arroyo is liable under the "doctrine of qualified political agency" which provides that all executive and administrative organizations are adjuncts of the executive department.

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said it is "too early to say" whether the President has committed a "sin of omission."

"Suffice it to say that President Arroyo does not tolerate wrongdoings in her Cabinet and she’ll leave it all to Bolante to prove his innocence," Remonde said.

"It is not true that President Arroyo has failed to act on the case. She has directed the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission to look into it. PAGC, however, terminated its investigation when the Ombudsman started its official probe, he said.

The Blue Ribbon report said when the scandal was first investigated by 13th Congress, the Senate committee on agriculture and the Blue Ribbon committee, chaired by Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and Sen. Joker Arroyo, found that the President herself "must be held accountable in the mismanagement of the fertilizer fund and take it upon herself to institute measures to correct the flaws in her administration."

It noted that instead of ordering an investigation of the parties involved, the President even rewarded Poliquit in December 2005 "to a cushy position as GSIS vice president even as the controversy remained unsolved."

"It should first have ensured that the investigation was concluded before such promotion was made. And for promoting Belinda Gonzales to the post of DA undersecretary, without a thorough vetting process that could have bared the scam, the executive here committed twice the sin of omission," the report said.

Aside from Gonzales and Poliquit, others who were recommended to be charged with plunder were Leonicia Llarena, Deonilla Gregorio, Redentor Antolin, Marilyn Araos, Marites Aytona, and Jaime Paule, the alleged Malacañang liaison in the alleged diversion of the fund to the campaign kitty of administration candidates during the 2004 elections.

Aytona has been tagged as Bolante’s runner. She has denied this, saying she was just a consultant of a foundation which implemented the farm implements program in 2004.

Llanera had denied that she was one of the "financiers" of the transaction.

Araos was described as a member of Aytona’s staff.

Paule was tagged by Gonzales as one of the people who were at the meeting with Bolante at the New World Hotel in Makati City in 2002.

Gonzales said Paule’s group was seeking assistance against certain people who had claimed connections with the DA and who had duped them.

Aside from plunder, the Gordon committee recommended that Bolante be charged with technical malversation, money laundering and false testimony while Poliquit and Gonzales should be charged with technical malversation.

It said Llarena should be charged with money laundering and false testimony, Gregorio (money laundering, tax evasion, and disobedience to summons issued by the Senate), Antolin and Araos (money laundering), Aytona (money laundering, tax evasion, false testimony and disobedience to summons), Paule (money laundering and false testimony) and Joselito Flordeliza (money laundering).

Gordon also called for the immediate resignation of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.

"The Ombudsman failed to do its duty when no resolution was made on this case even after more than a thousand days. We denounce its inaction in the strongest possible terms. It seems that instead of apprehending the caravans of thieves, the Ombudsman has turned a blind eye and has allowed them to go on their merry way," he said.

"To be sure, there are already serious and mounting calls for her resignation, and we support them. Instead of being part of the solution to corruption and justifying the existence of its office, it has instead become part of the problem, worsened the climate of corruption and given cause for its abolition," he added.

Gordon said the Ombudsman should decide on the cases pending for nearly 1,300 days.

"The Ombudsman motu propio can conduct an investigation into wrongdoings of government officers. Had it exercised its powers more aggressively, the resolution of the fertilizer scam and other issues related to it could have been yesterday’s news," he said.

The Ombudsman had received the report and recommendation of the Task Force Abono on its investigation into the fertilizer fund scam as early as June 2006, but it did not take any action.

The task force, which the Ombudsman created to look into the anomaly, had recommended the filing of graft charges against Bolante and other suspected erring officials.

Ombudsman investigators reportedly found that the purchased farm equipment were overpriced by as much as 200 to 300 percent, an absence of public bidding required by law, and the illegal use of public funds.

Gordon said the Senate will not hesitate to exercise its power of the purse as well as other legislative and constitutional powers to enact wholesale reforms in the Office of the Ombudsman and remove its occupants, if not effect its "de facto abolition," he said.

Gordon recommended that if the Constitution is amended after the 2010 elections, the post of the Ombudsman should be made elective than appointive to ensure that the next Ombudsman will not owe its loyalty to any entity.

"We can, by making the position elective, ensure more its independence from the Executive than what we have now. We need an Ombudsman beholden only to the people," he said.

The panel recommended five remedial measures for a more effective battle against corruption.

These are to amend the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) of 2001 and its Implementing Rules and Regulations, the Procurement Act, Secrecy of Bank Deposits Act, the General Appropriations Act (GAA), and Senate Rules of Procedure Governing inquiries in Aid of Legislation regarding Direct Contempt.

The committee proposed that Section 10 of the AMLA be amended by extending the freeze order on bank accounts of an erring official from an additional six months to two years. The two-year freeze should be applied for every six months to show that there is no grave abuse of discretion on the part of Anti-Money Laundering Council.

Gordon said amendments to the Bank Secrecy Act should not exempt public officers charged before the Courts for violations of the anti-graft law.

In the GAA, the committee seeks to include a provision that will penalize officials and employees for failure to submit quarterly financial and narrative accomplishment reports.

In the Senate Rules, Gordon said there is a need to include a provision on direct and indirect contempt and arrest in the rules of procedure governing inquiries in aid of legislation, because the lack of it has frustrated the Senate’s power to immediately cite persons in contempt.

Sen. Mar Roxas said the committee report illustrates the system of syndicated corruption in the government that flourished under President Arroyo.