‘Victims’ of alleged midnight resos at DOJ coming out – group

Supposed victims are coming out one by one to prove allegations of midnight resolutions being rushed at the Department of Justice (DOJ) just before President-elect Rodrigo Duterte assumes the presidency on June 30.

This was according to the Filipino Alliance for Transparency and Empowerment (FATE), which earlier claimed to have learned about last-minute reversals of decisions made by Acting Justice Secretary Emmanuel Caparas allegedly in exchange for money. 

Caparas has repeatedly denied the accusation and challenged the group to come out with evidence. 

On Monday, FATE spokesperson Jo Perez said several individuals have contacted her group claiming to be victims of alleged midnight resolutions and asking for the group's assistance.

“FATE is determined in helping the incoming Duterte administration in weeding out corruption and illegal activities in government agencies. President-elect Duterte and incoming Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre III should closely look into the midnight resolutions and decisions under DOJ Secretary Emmanuel Caparas,” Perez said.

Perez said two of the alleged victims of the "resolution for sale" who approached her group were an employee of the Bureau of Immigration whose promotion was scrapped by the DOJ and one Dong Batalan who filed a case against a billionaire that is still pending with the DOJ.

In an e-mail to GMA News Online, Batalan said he filed a case against the billionaire more than two years for serious illegal detention, grave coercion, robbery and falsification of public documents.

"But until now, the case is pending at the DOJ. Just last night [June 9], I received a call from a reliable source informing me that the above case was among the subject of midnight resolution being orchestrated by the SOJ [secretary of justice]," he said.

Perez said they have already asked Batalan to subimt documents to support his allegation of a midnight resolution in his case.

Meanwhile, BI employee Imra-ali Sabdullah, Immigration Officer 1 at BI-Cebu and who has been with the agency for almost 30 years, also claimed being victimized by a last-minute ruling regarding his supposed promotion.

He said his promotion papers mysteriously went missing at the DOJ, even as the position supposedly meant for him was given by Sec. Caparas to an outsider who is not an employee of the bureau. The BI is under the DOJ.

Perez said Sabdullah coursed to her group a letter addressed to Aguirre, in which he claimed that his position was given by the DOJ to an outsider who is not a BI employee and was not part of the final list of BI appointments recommended and endorsed by BI Commissioner Ronaldo Geron to the DOJ for approval by Sec. Caparas.

Perez added that Sabdullah said as a consequence, his appointment was not endorsed to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) “ because of the fraudulent and anomalous act committed by the in charge of BI appointments under the office of Undersecretary Marguerite Therese Lucila-Tesoro.”

And because of exposing the anomaly at the DOJ, Sabdullah said he was unfairly suspended for 90 days by Caparas over a case that happened in 2015.

Last December 2015, he said, he was among the 18 BI employees that were interviewed for promotion to two vacant positions of Immigration Officer 3.

Last January, he was told by the BI Personnel Selection Board and the BI Administrative Division that he had successfully passed the interview and that his name was included in the short list of applicants that was forwarded to the DOJ to select the final appointees for the two vacant items.

After being selected from the short list, the BI proposed his appointment for promotion to Immigration Officer 3 through an endorsement letter dated March 23, 2016 sent to the DOJ and received by the DOJ on March 28.

He later flew to Manila and signed the duties and functions needed for the attestation of his appointment. However, he received information from a co-employee that the DOJ had already transmitted the approved appointments and his name was not included.

When he personally inquired with Tesoro about his appointment, the latter allegedly told him that she had no idea about his appointment.

Sabdullah wrote Tesoro a letter requesting her office to release his appointment but up to now, he has not received any reply. Moreover, he said, because of his complaint, the DOJ "retaliated" against him by making a formal charge dated May 27 signed by Sec. Caparas regarding a case in June 2015, which he had already answered before in writing, about an alleged neglect of duty when he cleared a passenger who was equipped with all the necessary requirements as a tourist. Caparas suspended him for 90 days.

“The said order was mailed to me through LBC which is indicative of their ill-intentions towards me after knowing the irregularities in the Department of Justice,” Sabdullah's letter stated.

“With the forgoing facts, I hope these intended offenses and serious irregularities committed by the in-charge of BI appointments be subjected to penal sanction with my plea that my pending appointment shall be processed and approved by the new leadership of the Honorable Secretary Aguirre II, and as the representative of President Digong Duterte, I believed he stand by his principle and slogan of a ‘Corrupt Free Government’ and will not tolerate any irregularities which are in flagrant violation of the law, these rules and regulations of the Civil Service Commission and the Bureau’s Merit Selection Plan (MSP),” Sabdullah said in his letter to Aguirre.

GMA News Online has already contacted Caparas for his comment on these two alleged victims of midnight resolutions, but he has yet to respond as of posting time. — RSJ, GMA News