Filing season opened yesterday for certificates of candidacy for the 2010 elections and continues until Nov. 30.

The early bird in Cebu City was businessman Cris Saavedra, who wants to turn his 2007 graft expose on the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) into a bid for the mayorship.

Two years after his whistleblowing heydey, his complaint about “overpricing” of the CICC remains stuck in the paper mill of the Ombudsman’s Office.

Gov. Gwen Garcia and other main actors in the project are set to file their reelection bids and don’t look worried at all.

With the countdown to Nov. 30 in motion, it would be a big surprise if any adverse decision comes out.

After dragging on for two years, the fact-finding inquiry into whether the P600 million project, which balooned to P800 million, was overpriced has met internal roadblocks in the anti-graft office.

Visayas Deputy Ombudsman Pelagio Apostol firmly denied speculation that he told staff to look for evidence to clear Governor Garcia.

We don’t think he did something foolish or illegal. His decision to refer the whole matter, at this late stage, to Manila for review is the act of a cautious man. Some would call it a gesture of timidity.

The only decision to be made at this stage in the Vsiayas office is whether the fact-finding inquiry, based on audit reports and other documents gathered so far, merits a formal investigation, so that parties can be summoned to give their side. Just that.

To decide on an upgrade is nothing for Governor Garcia, Vice Gov. Greg Sanchez or members of the Provincial Board to lose sleep over. This step would simply move the case forward as part of due process.

But it’s sheer frustration for graft investigators in Cebu who have been working on the case to see their head of office defer to a centralized bureaucracy in Manila, instead of making a judgement call well within his mandate.

We don’t expect Tanodbayan Merceditas Gutierrez to be making the CICC case No. 1 in her priority list of things to do.

Then there is elbow room provided by the Aguinaldo doctrine.

Apostol explained that under the Aguinaldo doctrine officials are absolved of administrative liablility in a graft case if they get reelected.

The timing of this disclosure is disturbing. It would only justify dragging the case longer and waiting for the May 2010 election to make the case moot.

It falls on the Visayas Ombudsman to steer the course of this case to a decisive ending or to legal amnesia.