(Eagle News) — Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo on Friday denied President Rodrigo Duterte was intimidating the Office of the Ombudsman, noting that it was the chief executive who welcomed a probe into his family’s wealth in the first place.
“No one is intimidating the Ombudsman..(The President) is not intimidating the Ombudsman,” Panelo said when asked in a television interview for his reaction to the anti-graft body’s statement that it would not be intimidated and would continue its probe of the Duterte family’s wealth as planned.
The Ombudsman had issued the statement in response to the President’s pronouncement he would create a commission to investigate the anti-graft body if it did not look into corruption within its ranks.
According to Panelo, what the President was against was was the “selective enforcement by the Ombudsman of the law.”
He said by “selective enforcement of the law” he meant the act of “investigating other people but not others.”
Panelo added that while the President could not investigate Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales herself, he could probe Ombudsman personnel who may have erred.
“He has the power to investigate then. He has to know whether there are violations so laws can be faithfully executed,” Panelo said.