Caloocan mayor gets court order halting his suspension for graft

MANILA, Philippines—Caloocan Mayor Enrico Echiverri has scored a legal victory over Vice Mayor Edgar Erice yet again, putting a temporary halt to what many perceive to be an epic battle for power in the city of northern Metro Manila.

The Caloocan City Regional Trial Court issued last Friday a writ of preliminary injunction, effectively stopping the Department of the Interior and Local Government, from implementing a six-month preventive suspension order against the mayor and three other city officials for an indefinite period of time.

The injunction was granted by Judge Dionisio Sison of Branch 125, giving Echiverri’s camp a reprieve from the suspension order that the DILG was to serve early January.

The order stems from a complaint filed by Erice at the Office of the Ombudsman in July, which has accused the mayor, City Treasurer Evelina Garma, Budget Officer Jesusa Garcia and City Accountant Edna Centeno of not remitting more than P340 million of city hall employees’ contributions to the Government Service Insurance System.

Although Echiverri, Garma, Garcia and Centeno managed to seek temporary relief from the Court of Appeals in August 2011, the appellate court ruled on January 2 that the anti-graft body did not commit grave abuse of discretion when it ordered them suspended.

Executive Judge Eleanor Kwong of Branch 128 issued a three-day temporary restraining order on the implementation of the suspension order on January 9, citing the need to prevent “uncontrolled violence” among supporters of the mayor and the vice mayor who had barricaded the city hall.

Hours before the TRO lapsed on January 12, Sison granted Echiverri’s camp’s request for its extension for 17 days, during which the court would determine whether the TRO could lead to a preliminary injunction.

The extension of the TRO was set to have lapsed on January 29.

In granting the injunction, the court in its two-page decision cited as a basis a letter dated January 11 from the Ombudsman and addressed to the DILG in response to the agency’s request for guidance from the anti-graft body.

The DILG, through Undersecretary Austere Panadero, made the request after the local court then issued a three-day TRO on the implementation of the suspension order.

“Without delving into the propriety of the TRO, which is a legal issue that is solely subject to the determination of the courts, nor into the merits of all the cases now pending, as matters stand at present, the DILG has been enjoined to refrain from implementing the order of preventive suspension issued by the Office of the Ombudsman. Any action of the DILG which is contrary to the TRO might just add to the now series of cases brought in connection with the main case still pending at the Office of the Ombudsman,” the court quoted the letter as saying.

The letter, a copy of which was later obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, was signed by Orlando Casimiro, overall deputy ombudsman.

It added that the anti-graft body had not yet received a notice of finality on the decision of the Court of Appeals, and that a motion for reconsideration was pending in the appellate court.

As such, the court said that the implementation of the suspension order “has to be enjoined” for “injustice” not to be done to the petitioners and to avoid rendering “whatever judgment of (the local) court ineffectual.”  In a statement, Echiverri thanked the local court and the Office of the Ombudsman for “making their position clear on the matter.”

“We have maintained from the very beginning that the decision of the CA is not yet final but Secretary Robredo, for reasons unknown to me, is insistent on executing the suspension. We hope that the good secretary is finally enlightened on this issue,” Echiverri said.

He added that Robredo should have first sought the advice of the anti-graft body before attempting to implement the order of preventive suspension.

“If the DILG only consulted the Ombudsman prior to all of these, then it would not have been necessary for me to go the court and ask for a TRO in the first place. It would have prevented the spontaneous mass action by the people of Caloocan,” he said.