On Monday, Jovencito Zu?o caps a 35-year career in public service, of which 13 years were served as Chief State Prosecutor. Over the past 13 years, Zu?o's has been cr edited for his successful prosecution of former president Joseph Estrada for plunder in connection with insider trading in the Belle Corp. stocks; the convictions of former Calauan Mayor Antonio Sanchez for rape-slay; Zamboanga del Norte Rep. Romeo Jalosjos for rape of a minor; and, Hubert Webb and others for the Vizconde massacre. Despite these achievements, Zu?o is leaving his post with a bitter aftertaste. A year before his retirement, he got dragged into a drug-related bribery controversy, and just a week ago, he was slapped with graft charges. As the Office of the Special Prosecutor is to the Ombudsman, the Chief State Prosecutor heads the prosecution arm of the Department of Justice. He exercises supervision and control over the National Prosecution Service (NPS), a bureaucracy of 1,750 prosecutors nationwide. In the division of functions in the prosecutorial units of the government, the NPS is in charge of cases involving public officials whose salary grades are below 27. It is also deputized by the Ombudsman to prosecute graft cases to be filed before regular courts, and the prosecution of public officials for crimes that are not service-related. Among the high-profile cases currently being handled by DOJ prosecutors are the double murder case against Senator Panfilo Lacson for the killing of publicist Salvador ‘Bubby' Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito, and the Maguindanao massacre allegedly perpetrated by the Ampatuan political clan. But unlike the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which enjoys relative autonomy from the Ombudsman, the Chief State Prosecutor is under the control of the justice secretary, who is an alter ego of the president. Still, while its powers may be clipped or undermined by whoever is the justice secretary, the Chief State Prosecutor cannot be unilaterally removed since it is a permanent position with security of tenure. As head of the NPS, Zu?o says his post was a natural magnet for pressure. He recalled being dressed down once by a former justice chief who wanted a bouncing check case dismissed. The former boss was reportedly acting on behalf of a local politician, now a senator, who wanted the case junked. Politicians, friends and power brokers would drop by or call his office asking for favors. “I try to accommodate them as long as it would not compromise my job,” he says in an interview with abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak days before his retirement. Still, “some say I am not a team player. They say I am independent-minded,” he adds. This apparently was the reason why he failed to get appointed as Ombudsman, and later, as a commissioner of the Commission on Elections. He admitted applying for the posts “for a change of environment.”
