By Hannah Torregoza Detained Senator Leila de Lima on Friday said Malacañang’s dismissal of overall deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang is President Rodrigo Duterte’s stern warning to incoming Ombudsman Samuel Martires not to mess with members of the First Family. Senator Leila de Lima (REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco / MANILA BULLETIN) De Lima said she is certain that the President will stop at nothing to prevent the world from finding out the true extent of his hidden wealth and that of his family, amassed through years of corruption and illegal activities. “First, Duterte has no respect for the law. The Supreme Court already ruled that the President has no disciplinary power over the Ombudsman deputies. (Yet) Duterte does not care about this,” De Lima said in a statement. “Second, Duterte is telling incoming Ombudsman Martires that he is better off not to question Malacañang’s usurpation of the Ombudsman’s disciplinary authority over his Deputies,” she said. The opposition senator also said the former Davao City mayor will do everything to conceal the drawing of public funds for ghost employees and other questionable expenses at the city hall that the Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged. “Duterte’s action exemplifies how impunity is running this government, and how closer to a dictatorship we have become, ensuring the impotence of independent investigative bodies like the Office of the Ombudsman, unless Martires does the right thing and stands up to Malacañang’s challenge,” she said. Malacañang dismissed Carandang for revealing alleged bank transactions of President Duterte and his family a few days after Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales retired from public service. Carpio-Morales had earlier refused to enforce the 90-day suspension Malacañang issued against Carandang citing the independence of the Ombudsman as a constitutional office. The decision, which was signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, stated that Carandang was “clearly only interested to broadcast an information adverse to the President.” But De Lima said the actions of the President only show that he is “deathly afraid of being exposed as the corrupt public official that he truly is, and will stop at nothing to go after Carandang or any other government investigator who dares to make him accountable to the people.” “There will be no accountability for Duterte as long as he is in power. A government position to him is nothing but a platform for abuse and impunity,” the senator said. “That is how he has always seen public office, whether as mayor or president,” De Lima added.