The Supreme Court dismissed a petition for certiorari filed by ecology lawyers against Capitol officials and the Ombudsman recently.<\/p>\n
The petition filed by the Global Legal Action Against Climate Change (GLACC) stemmed from the Capitol\u2019s alleged failure in 2009 to provide them documents on an agreement with the Korean Electric Co. to build a coal ash waste facility in barangay Tina-an, Naga City.<\/p>\n
The High Court said the petitioners failed to provide a complete set of dates and sufficient evidence that Capitol officials and \u201cthe Ombudsman-Visayas committed grave abuse of discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cebu ecology lawyers Gloria Estenzo-Ramos and Benjamin Cabrido of GLACC\u00a0 filed the petition for certiorari\u00a0 last May after the Ombudsman dismissed their administrative complaint.<\/p>\n
They said the respondents should be held liable for violating the Anti-Red Tape Act and Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.<\/p>\n
They said Ombudsman Merceditias Gutierrez gravely abused her discretion and took lightly the clear provisions of law about the duty of public officials to provide public documents requested by\u00a0 the public.<\/p>\n
The lawyers elevated their case to the Supreme Court after the Ombudsman dismissed their administrative complaint against Capitol officials.<\/p>\n
A copy of the en banc order was showed by Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia during yesterday’s press conference.<\/p>\n
Her daughter,\u00a0 Capitol consultant\u00a0 Christina Codilla-Frasco said the two Cebu lawyers will be facing \u201clegal consequences\u201d for filing the complaints .<\/p>\n
\u201cFiling frivolous, harassing, baseless, trumped-up complaint petitions or charges against any individual of course has its consequences especially if that complaint is dismissed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ombudsman Gutierrez dismissed the complaint last April 25, four days before handing her resignation to President Aquino.<\/p>\n
Gutierrez agreed with the Capitol’s argument that the\u00a0 anti-red tape law covers employees in\u00a0 \u201cfrontline services\u201d or those involved in processing of applications and other documents.<\/p>\n
The former Ombudsman said the Capitol didn’t ignore the request of the two lawyers since Capitol consultant Rory Jon Sepulveda announced in a press conference the availability of the documents in August last year.<\/p>\n
Gutierrez noted that Sepulveda asked the lawyers to get them from the office.\u00a0 The administrative cases were filed by GLACC against the Capitol officials in 2009 after pointing out the risk of pollution and health hazards from\u00a0 dumping coal ash wastes of power plants. Correspondent Carmel Loise Matus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court dismissed a petition for certiorari filed by ecology lawyers against Capitol officials and the Ombudsman recently. The petition filed by the Global Legal Action Against Climate Change (GLACC) stemmed from the Capitol\u2019s alleged failure in 2009 to provide them documents on an agreement with the Korean Electric Co. to build a coal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1242,1227],"tags":[],"byline":[],"source":[206068],"column":[],"editor":[],"videographer":[],"position":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n