Acop vs. Office of the Ombudsman. “The Office of the OMBUDSMAN FOR THE MILITARY has jurisdiction on the PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION of cases even if it concerns NON-MILITARY PERSONNEL (police for example), even though Preliminary Investigation was first deduced that it was solely under the jurisdiction of the Tanodbayan”.

In this case, government agencies, NCR Command, Traffic Management Command (TMC), Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC), Presidential Central Police District Command (CPDC) and Criminal Investigation Command (CIC) were accused of summary killing 11 members of the “Kuratong Baleleng” gang by S/PO de los Reyes of Central Intelligence Commission. He stated that there was no “shootout” but a “summary killing instead”.

The complaint went up to the Office of the Ombudsman of the Military. The Ombudsman addressed the PNP concerned to submit an “After Operations Report” to the Panel of Investigators, also created by the Ombudsman. The panel recommended for a preliminary investigation on a list of officers presented by the PNP. In effect, the Ombudsman ordered the officers listed to submit their counter affidavit. Petitioners however, questioned the conduct, stating that the Ombudsman has no jurisdiction to take preliminary investigation but the Tanodbayan has and that they preempted the Court on ruling on the issue whether the Ombudsman has jurisdiction over the case in the first place. HELD: 1. the Ombudsman has jurisdiction as stated in Sec. 31 of RA 6770 (it states that the word “cases” includes “non-military cases”), and 2. The Ombudsman has jurisdiction on Preliminary Investigation as stated in A.O. no. 7 Sec. 2. thus, there is no abuse of discretion on the part of the Ombudsman.