[Inside the Newsroom] Poetic justice for Art Carandang

When former ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales launched her memoir in July 2025, I was seated at a table full of lawyers. Beside me was a familiar man.

I initiated a small talk and asked him about his previous work as an anti-corruption investigator. 

I took the chance because it’s not every day that you would get to meet Melchor Arthur Carandang, a man of integrity, and Morales’ former overall deputy ombudsman (ODO). Rodrigo Duterte despises him, and the former president did everything — even resorting to illegal means — to push Carandang out of the Office of the Ombudsman. 

Hello! I am Jairo Bolledo, Rappler’s justice reporter. You are reading this nearly a week after the Supreme Court (SC) uploaded its decision that reversed Duterte’s dismissal of Carandang. 

Quick timeline: Carandang handled the Ombudsman probe into Duterte’s alleged unexplained assets in 2017.

Duterte allies filed a complaint against him after he explained to the media that the bank records shown by former senator Antonio Trillanes IV in his complaint seemed similar to what he had seen from the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s records. 

Duterte’s Office of the President fired Carandang in 2018, even though the ODO was an official of an independent constitutional body. The following year, Duterte appointee Samuel Martires — who replaced Carpio Morales — implemented Carandang’s dismissal. 

Carandang went through the courts but secured his victory at the SC only in 2026, or seven years after his illegal dismissal. The High Court can no longer reinstate him, so the least it could do was to void the dismissal and give Carandang his back wages and retirement pay. 

Carandang’s former colleagues, including Morales herself, were ecstatic for him.
Another former colleague recalled that “Art” was among the Ombudsman’s pioneers, who had worked his way up to be the constitutional body’s second-in-command. Their “Art” had no record of corruption nor abuse, he said. “I am happy that he has now been fully vindicated, but I personally want to see the lawyers who pushed for his dismissal — the illegality of which they openly admitted — punished for their blatantly wrongful conduct,” Carandang’s former colleague told me in a message. 

Carandang’s victory is a win for the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman because the SC Third Division, through Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh, reiterated that the president has no disciplining power over constitutional body officials like Carandang. 

This reinforced the Ombudsman’s independence and clarified the limitations of the president’s power to dismiss officials. 

More than anything, however, this is also a reaffirmation of how abusive Duterte was — how the former president weaponized the law and resorted to illegal means to get rid of his critics. A Duterte presidency trademark. 

Singh wrote: “Allowing the president to unilaterally discipline officials charged with investigating potential wrongdoing within the administration invites retaliation, coercion, and the suppression of oversight, conditions fundamentally at odds with transparency and accountability.”

We tried reaching out to Carandang, but he chose silence for now. Understandable, given the extent of the damage that Duterte did to his and his family’s reputation. 

But, indeed, what a poetic justice for ODO Art. 

Although bittersweet, it is still vindication. Carandang now stands tall, with his integrity reaffirmed, and he can now enjoy his hard-earned retirement benefits and spend time with his family. 

Meanwhile, his oppressor, Duterte, is locked away in The Hague, awaiting an International Criminal Court trial for crimes against humanity. – Rappler.com

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