A circulated wild claim that Gov. Edgar Chatto and other capitol officials face arrest and suspension over the joint venture complaint is gravely malicious and totally misleading.
There is even no Ombudsman resolution to this date on the motion for reconsideration filed by the governor and company last year, according to Capitol sources.
The Ombudsman is mainly an inquest or prosecution body, which resolution may become a basis for an information to be elevated to the Sandiganbayan before the latter, as a court, acts on it.
The latest Ombudsman resolution has been very clear in only resolving the reconsideration motions separately filed by Rep. Rene Relampagos and Salcon executive Dennis Villareal.
Salcon is the private sector and investor partner of the provincial government in the joint venture, a water and water development project hailed as a local best practice and a model initiative in the country.
For his part, Relampagos, was “extremely disappointed†upon learning from reports of the denial to his motion, but is “ready to take the next steps†once he receives the resolution.
The dispositive portion of the resolution dismisses only the appeals filed by the congressman and joint venture private investor, the legal office of the province noted.
Bar topnotcher Victor dela Serna speculated thatChatto will be arrested once he arrives at the airport in Manila and brought to Sandiganbayan.
The governor was the invited guest of honor and keynote speaker during the 16th Biennial Convention of the Confederation Boholanos in the USA and Canada over the weekend in New Jersey.
In the absence of an indicting Ombudsman decision, the Sandiganbayan cannot assume jurisdiction and issue any warrant.
Dela Serna presumed the arrest of the governor, et al, on obviously and purely on account of the Ombudsman denial to the reconsideration pleas of Relampagos and Villareal.
This is grossly misleading because the Ombudsman has no resolution yet on Chatto’s motion, according to capitol.
And while Relampagos’ motion has been scrapped, he can bail himself out if there is a Sandiganbayan arrest order over the bailable complaint.
The congressman has 60 days to seek legal remedies either from the Court of Appeals or Supreme Court directly.
The joint venture complaint filed by the group of the anti-Chatto, anti-Relampagos bar topnotcher had long been dismissed by the Ombudsman in 2008.
Civil cases were separately filed in regular courts but junked, too, even by the Court of Appeals when the complainants went there for reconsideration.
The Ombudsman dismissal had since been not questioned as no appeal had ever been filedby the complainants until a resolution surprisingly reversing its own decision suddenly just came out in 2014 or six years after the 2008 dismissal.
Chatto, Relampagos, et al, thus, appealed in their separate motions last year,
In the latest resolution, there was no mention that the motions filed by Chatto and other respondents, including Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim and Provincial Board Member Tomas Abapo, Jr., were summarily denied, too.
Hence, there is no legal basis for the news publication or even the bar topnotcher to state that there is a looming arrest and suspension of the governor and other respondents, the capitol said.
The lawyer capitol ex-OIC, therefore, is further fooling the innocent public in saying that Chatto could be arrested once he arrives at the Manila airport, according to the province’s legal circle.  (VenreboArigo)