CA affirms suspension of Mayor Echiverri

The Court of Appeals has affirmed the six-month suspension order that the Office of the Ombudsman handed down on Caloocan City Mayor Enrico “Recom” Echiverri for his alleged failure to turn over some P38 million worth of contributions of the city government employees to the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

In a 40-page ruling, the appellate court thumbed down Echiverri’s claim that the antigraft body committed grave abuse of discretion when it ordered his preventive suspension on July 18, 2011.

It also did not give credit to the mayor’s insinuation that there was a “malicious conspiracy” between the Ombudsman and Vice Mayor Edgar Erice, who filed the case against his fellow Liberal Party member.

“This court … holds that there was no undue haste on the Ombudsman’s part in issuing the preventive suspension order,” the appeals court said in its ruling dated January 2.

“The fact that the order was issued eleven days from the filing of the complaint-affidavit did not constitute grave abuse of discretion,” it stressed.

Associate Justices Rebecca de Guia-Salvador and Stephen Cruz agreed with the decision authored by Associate Justice Agnes Reyes-Carpio.

Echiverri’s suspension from office came after Erice sued his erstwhile political ally on July 7, 2011, for his alleged failure to remit the GSIS contributions of city hall employees from July 1997 to December 2002 and from January 2007 to December 2010.

As of Dec. 31, 2010, the vice mayor said the city government’s obligations to the GSIS had reached over P343 million, inclusive of the principal and accumulated interest for the unpaid compulsory premiums.

Eleven days after Erice filed his complaint for graft, the Ombudsman issued a six-month prevention order on Echiverri and three other city hall officials.

But even before the Department of the Interior and Local Government could implement the suspension order, the appellate court issued a 60-day temporary restraining order in favor of Echiverri et al.

The court eventually issued a writ of preliminary injunction to indefinitely prevent the implementation of Echiverri’s suspension.

In upholding the antigraft body’s decision to suspend Echiverri, the appeals court said the “Deputy Ombudsman and the Ombudsman, being public officials, enjoy the presumption that they performed their duties regularly.”