FORMER justice secretary Hernando Perez
yesterday asked the Ombudsman to reconsider its decision
recommending the filing of charges of extortion, graft, and
falsification of public documents against him, his wife Rosario,
brother in law Ramon Arceo and business associate Ernest Escaler.
He assailed Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez
for taking on the roles of investigator and prosecutor in the
case, "a role foreign to her in a preliminary investigation."
The Ombudsman‘s recommendations stemmed from
the case filed by former Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez who accused
Perez of extorting $2 million from him in February 2001.
Jimenez said he was forced to pay up to stop
Perez from harassing him and forcing him to implicate officials
of the Estrada administration in irregularities.
Jimenez was then brokering a power contract
between the Arroyo government and an Argentinean firm. The
contract was eventually approved after Perez issued a favorable
legal opinion on it.
Perez, in the motion for reconsideration,
also criticized Gutierrez for the delay in the resolution of the
case.
"According to her, there was delay because of
the complexities of the issues raised and because of difficulty
of obtaining documents. The issues became complicated because
the Ombudsman went out of her way and beyond her role in a
preliminary investigation," he said.
"She took it upon herself to prove what the
complainant Mario B. Crespo a.k.a. Mark Jimenez failed to
do. She became not only the investigator, but also the
prosecutor, a role foreign to her in a preliminary
investigation," he said.
He said the Ombudsman even committed error of facts in
saying, for example, that Arceo is brother of his wife.
