The Philippine Online Chronicles

The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) began on Wednesday the public interviews of the nominees for the Ombudsman post, which was left vacant following the resignation of Merceditas Gutierrez last month.

Five of the 27 Ombudsman aspirants face the eight-member council today. They are Alfredo Agawa, retired Regional Trial Court judge; Philip Aguinaldo, Muntinlupa RTC presiding judge; Pelagio Apostol, former deputy ombudsman for Visayas;  Leah Armamento, justice undersecretary; and Procopio Beltran Jr., lawyer.

On the side of JBC, those present are Chief Justice Renato Corona, Justice Regino Hermosisima, Justice Aurora Santiago Lagman, lawyer Milagros Fernan-Cayosa, and Jose Mejia.

At around 11 a.m., The JBC finished interviewing justice undersecretary Armamento, who faced questions regarding the issue of extrajudicial killings and eradication of corruption in all levels of government.

Asked about the issue of political killings, Armamento said the ombudsman “can do parallel investigations because it can do fact finding, and merge efforts with DOJ and PAOCTF,” tweeted Vincent Lazatin of the Transparency and Accountability Network.

Lazatin was the sole observer allowed to tweet on the updates on the JBC interview. The JBC rejected live media coverage for the interviews, which will run on June 22-23 and 27-29.

The council also interviewed retired judge Agawa, who promised the “speedy disposal of cases as an innovation at the Office of the Ombudsman,” according to Lazatin’s tweet.

Twenty-two more aspirants will be interviewed by the council in the following days. GMANews.tv provided a full list of the Ombudsman aspirants.

Shortlist of nominees for SC

The JBC will also finalize today the short list of nominees for the vacant posts in the Supreme Court, according to a Newsbreak report.

The high court has two vacant posts following the retirement of justices Conchita Carpio-Morales and Eduardo Nachura. Carpio-Morales is currently one of the nominees for the ombudsman post.

Newsbreak said that the prominent nominees to the SC positions include Court of Appeals justices Bienvenido Reyes and Jose Reyes (not related).