Court stops removal of PhilRice top official

CABANATUAN CITY—A Nueva Ecija court has stopped Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala from enforcing an order removing the top official of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice).

In an order on June 23, Judge Eleanor Teodora Marbas-Vizcarra of the Regional Trial Court in Sto. Domingo town granted the petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) filed by Ronilo Beronio, PhilRice executive director. The TRO covers a period of 20 days while the court hears a civil case filed by Beronio.

Vizcarra also stopped Constante Briones, secretary of the PhilRice board of trustees, from including the selection of nominees for executive director in the agenda of the board’s next meeting.

Court documents showed that Beronio, on May 9, received a memorandum from Alcala informing him that he was being removed because his position was “coterminous with the appointing authority.”

Alcala said Beronio was appointed by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the effectivity of his designation lapsed when Arroyo ended her term in June last year.

Beronio, a lawyer, served as PhilRice deputy executive director for 23 years before he became executive director on July 30, 2008. No provision in the PhilRice charter states that the term of the agency’s executive director is coterminous with the appointing authority, he said.

Moreover, he said, there is no provision in the charter that fixes the term of the executive director. Only the President can appoint or remove the executive director.

Beronio, in his petition, said that while PhilRice is an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture for policy coordination, it is not under its administrative supervision or the department secretary.

Alcala earlier assigned Beronio to the DA office as special assistant to the secretary. Ruben Miranda, PhilRice deputy executive director for development, was designated officer in charge of the agency.

After two months in the DA office, Beronio wrote Alcala and expressed his desire to reassume his post. Instead, he received a memorandum informing him of his removal from office.