This is my reaction to the statement of Congressman Harry Roque over DZMM radio station hosted by Ted Failon this morning January 3, 2017. The subject matter of the interview was partly on the dismissal of cases filed by the ombudsman before the Sandiganbayan. One of the reasons given by Harry Roque for said dismissal is because “nagkakalagayan kasi dyan sa OSP”. The OSP or the Office of the Special Prosecutor is the prosecutorial arm of the Ombudsman, and prosecutes the cases before the Sandiganbayan against high ranking officials with salary grade 27 and above and even those with lower salary grade level as long as they are categorized as falling under the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan.
We, at the OSP, register our vehement objection to this unfounded and libelous statement as if he has personal knowledge of the “bribery” which Harry Roque claims is going on in the Office of the Special Prosecutor. We challenge him to come out with the names of the Prosecutors who are tainted with this despicable reputation in order to clear those who have guarded their character with such high standard of morality and integrity worthy of emulation. As an office, we can be proud of our accomplishment and the records will show that in 2016, we have garnered a 70 percent conviction rate, as against the 30 percent which were unfortunately dismissed. If we compare this conviction rating to the other Prosecution service of the Government, perhaps Congressman Roque will give us a congratulatory greeting. The men and women of the OSP from the highest to lowest employee have all worked very hard in the prosecution of cases assigned to them. We have maintained the highest degree of competency in the preparation of our cases for trial. Sad to state however that we are not in full control of the outcome of the verdict. Even if our cases ended up in acquittal or dismissal, no one can, and should claim that we were “paid” to drop our cases. We fought to the end, God is our witness, we gave our very best and sacrificed our time for our families to see to it that justice is served.
We want the People of the Philippines whom we represent to know that we are carrying such a burden when we take our cases to the court but we never complain. We perform our duties and handle our responsibilities to give our share to good governance and fighting corruption.
We work with a sense of patriotism and to leave a good name to our children and the generations to come. When everything else is gone, only our good name remains, so we deplore the statements of Congressman Harry Roque over the radio which has impeached the good reputation of the Prosecutors of the Office of the Special Prosecutor. ###