Gwen won’t yield
Cebuanos tuned in to happenings at the Capitol are closely watching how the Court of Appeals (CA) in Manila will act on the petition filed by suspended Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia in a bid to stop the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) from implementing the order of the Office of the President suspending her from office for six months.
Garcia’s petition for review with prayer for a temporary restraining order has been raffled off to the CA 12th division, headed by Associate Justice Vicente Veloso. Now that Christmas is over, the CA justices better buckle down to work and act on the case because the Garcia camp is pinning its hopes on the Appellate Court’s issuance of a TRO as a way of ending the impasse.
Garcia insists the suspension order is illegal, a “power grab” in her own words and she wants the court to intervene by way of a TRO. A lawyer told me that ordinarily, the CA can issue an ex-parte judicial order, in a proceeding that would benefit the party pleading for such an order except that the Garcia case is in the radar of the Office of the President.
Malacañang maintains that a TRO cannot be exercised because Garcia’s suspension is a penalty, not a preventive action. Due process had been properly observed. Still, it does not stop Garcia from questioning the legality of the decision but she should first submit to the ruling of the executive department. That is how deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte explained the rationale of the decision as she called Garcia to yield the physical office of the governor and allow the acting governor to perform her duties based on the law of succession.
The situation looks simple enough but Garcia is unyielding. The DILG, she said, can remove her from the Capitol “over her dead body”.
When Garcia filed the petition for a TRO, the discussion among media colleagues immediately touched on corruption in the CA because there had been rumours of “TROs for sale” many years ago. In fact, it was the underlying current of the bribery scandal that rocked the Court of Appeals in September 2008, after then CA Associate Justice Jose Sabio accused his colleagues of easing him out from a special division handling the corporate war between Meralco and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).
Sabio accused businessman Francis de Borja of offering him P10 million to make way for a Meralco-friendly magistrate. De Borja denied the accusation and instead pointed his fingers at Sabio accusing him of quoting P50 million in order “to resist government pressure”. On the scandal, Senators Miriam Defensor Santiago and Joker Arroyo told newspaper reporters at the time that “among lawyers in Metro Manila, corruption in the CA is believed to be widespread.”
I think that after the Senate impeached former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona and with former President Gloria Arroyo arrested and jailed for cases of plunder, the systemic problem in the CA cannot persist unless some people would risk their professional careers and retirement benefits.
A debacle in the CA would see Garcia filing a case for certiorari before the Supreme Court, or if she backtracks a bit, a motion for reconsideration before the Office of the President.
An observer told me that a motion asking President Benigno Aquino III to review the suspension order is very interesting in light of the election season. Unless P-Noy is really bent on kicking out Gwen for daang matuwid reasons, the upcoming elections may be an avenue for back channeling because the victory of administration senatorial candidates is very important for Aquino’s three-year old administration. Will Gwen soften her stance, leave the Capitol and allow back channel approaches to work instead?
Meanwhile, it looks like the DILG, which has direct supervision over the Philippine National Police does not want to issue any specific order for evicting Gov. Garcia from the physical office. Perfectly understandable because a forcible ejection would ignite “people power” mass actions. Even if only 100 hakot people will show up, it would become a national issue and could do the administration some damage in the election season.
On the other hand, the Liberal Party in Cebu cannot just fold its arms and wait for things to happen because the longer the DILG takes to act on the implementation of the suspension order, the more complex and complicated it will become for the P-Noy administration.
In sum, Acting Gov. Agnes Magpale has to do something because while she performs the duties of the governor, the symbolic office is still under the control of Gwen Garcia. It’s an awkward situation to say the least and gives the perception that the State is inutile to implement a lawful order.
