Priest to Ombudsman: Preserve 'moral courage' amid anti-corruption mandate

Fr. Flavie Villanueva, one of the leaders of the People’s Impeachment Movement calling for the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, on Tuesday called on the Office of the Ombudsman to "preserve moral courage" given its mandate of investigating corrupt public officials.

“Corruption is not only the theft of money. It is the theft of medicine. It is the theft of moral integrity which leads to moral national woundedness. This is why the Ombudsman’s mission is not merely administrative or prosecutorial. Let me say that the mission of the Ombudsman is something that is of a moral mandate,” Villanueva said during a mass held at the Office of the Ombudsman’s for its agency’s anniversary.

The mass was attended by Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla and former Deputy Ombudsman Arthur Carandang, whose 2018 dismissal by former President Rodrigo Duterte was recently voided by the Supreme Court.

“The Ombudsman is called not only to investigate wrongdoings, but to preserve moral courage within governance itself, for silence in the face of wrongdoing eventually becomes complicity. And so, if I may, at your anniversary, invite you into a renewed covenant with the Filipino people. My call is for us to move forward from mere compliance towards moral conscience, from institutional fear towards courageous stewardship,” Villanueva pointed out.

“[Because] laws alone do not preserve justice, structures alone do not protect the truth, and power, left unchecked, rarely corrects itself. Every democracy needs institutions of conscience. Every institution needs a conscience. And yet, history teaches us that even that institution, no matter how noble, can drift from their founding purpose,” Villanueva added.

Villanueva then said Remulla has courageous stewardship and that he is praying for Remulla to sustain it.

“Let me end by saying that the hope is not for an Ombudsman feared by the innocent but trusted by the ordinary citizens, dreaded not only by corruption itself but dreaded by those who continue to lambast the law and to corrupt the growth of the nation,” Villanueva said.

“Democracies do not survive merely because constitutions are well written. They survive because enough people like yourselves within the institution continue to choose what is right over what is convenient. And so, today, we pray that the office of the Ombudsman remains faithful to its founding vision: courageous without arrogance, firm without cruelty, independent without isolation, just without losing mercy,” he added. —VAL, GMA News