MANILA, Philippines – Resigned Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez today admitted that she asked one big favor from President Benigno Aquino III during their meeting in Malacañang last week.
Gutierrez said that during their brief meeting at the Private Office of the Premier Guest House in Malacañang last April 29, she asked President Aquino to help a husband of someone close to her: her house maid.
"I said, Mr. President, the husband of my maid is working in Madagascar, one of the islands in Madagascar, and my maid would always tell me, 'Kawawa naman si Juanito,'" the outgoing Ombudsman said in an interview on ABS-CBN News.
She said that Juanito is one of the 200 workers threatened by deadly tsetse flies in one of the islands in Madagascar. She said that the Filipino worker told his wife that they have to wear "space suits" while inside their work site due to fear of being bitten by the disease-spreading flies.
Tsetse flies transmit the disease called Human African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness.
Gutierrez said that according to her maid's husband, at least 60 people have died from the disease in Madagascar.
She said that her maid's husband and other overseas Filipino workers in the affected areas in Madagascar want to return to the Philippines, but their employers have refused to end their contracts.
Gutierrez said that she saw President Aquino take note of her request and told her: "Sige, sige tingnan natin kung ano ang magagawa natin."
The outgoing Ombudsman made the revelation amid speculations that she and Malacañang may have come up with an agreement in exchange for her resignation.
There were reports that Malacañang could have asked Gutierrez to stand as state witness in cases that will be filed against former President and now Pampanga 2nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Gutierrez denied that there was an offer for her to become a state witness.
She also said that it would have been inappropriate to ask her to become a state witness against the former President.
"I don't think that should be a question that should be asked of me. I have nothing to do with whatever perceived anomalies done in the past," she said.
Gutierrez also denied that she had met with former President Arroyo and asked for her advice before she submitted her resignation to President Aquino. - By Angelo L. Gutierrez (
