Villarin pitches for responsible parenting, Ombuds trainings

CEBU, Philippines - If you lose in the elections for four consecutive times, would you rather stop and say “enough is enough” or continue running until you run out of breath?

Apparently for lawyer Florencio Villarin, an independent congressional aspirant for Cebu City north district, running for the fifth time in the same position means another chance to craft laws that would curb, if not eradicate, graft and corruption in the government.

In a round-table discussion with The Freeman, he said that if elected, he would push for the amendment of the Republic Act No. 6770, otherwise known as the Ombudsman Act of 1989.

Villarin, a retired regional director of the National Bureau of Investigation, proposed to raise the qualifications of the Ombudsman and his deputies for an effective campaign against graft and corruption.

He said that being a lawyer must not be the only qualification for the position, graft investigators must also be trained in the art of criminal investigation and must be criminal investigators for not less than 10 years whose integrity and competence are beyond question in order to make the Office of the Ombudsman a strong weapon in the fight against graft and corruption.

Criminal investigation is a profession that requires a formal training, like any other profession, to make one knowledgeable in the investigation of cases involving corrupt practices.

Villarin recalled Conrado Vasquez, a jurist, Atty. Aniano Desierto, a colonel whose branch of service in the Armed Forces of the Philippines was JAGS and the nature of his work was not related to criminal investigation; Simeon Marcelo, a plain practicing lawyer; and now Merceditas Gutierez, also a lawyer, and all of them have no background in criminal investigation.

According to Villarin, lawyer Marcelo lamented as he admitted that their average conviction of cases was only six percent allegedly because of lack of budget.

He said “this is misleading because it is not the lack of budget but their lack of skills in criminal investigation that make them ineffective.

In his proposed amendment, Villarin pushed for the creation of a “National Academy for Graft Investigators to make them effective in their work because not one among the investigators in the office of the Ombudsman has ever received any formal training in the art of criminal investigation”.

Since it is the erosion of moral values that breeds graft and corruption, Villarin said that he would also sponsor a bill that would include responsible parenting as a subject to be included in the curriculum of the public and private school system. (FREEMAN NEWS)