In Antique, woman wages lonely battle to return to her job

MARGIORE Alba poses at the tent she had set up in front of the Antique provincial capitol to demand her reinstatement as a provincial employee after she was removed for being coterminous with the former governor. ALBERT MAMORA/CONTRIBUTOR

ILOILO CITY—For several weeks now, Margiore Alba has refused to come home.

She has been living inside a tent at the public plaza of the capital town of San Jose in Antique province in front of the  capitol.

Alba spends most of the time alone except at night when her 17-year-old son keeps her company in the tent that stands between the monuments of national hero Dr. Jose Rizal and slain former Gov. Evelio Javier.

She takes a bath and uses the toilet of San Jose Cathedral, about 50 meters from the plaza.

“I will stay here as long as it is necessary and until I get justice,” she said in a phone interview.

Alba, 49, has been camping out at the plaza since Aug. 21 to protest the continued refusal of Antique Gov. Exequiel Javier to reinstate her as a  provincial government employee as ordered by the Civil Service Commission (CSC).

Javier dismissed Alba on July 1, 2010, because, according to Javier, she was coterminous with former Gov. Salvacion Zaldivar-Perez.

Alba had been promoted but the CSC invalidated this, ordering her reinstatement as Clerk I effective July 23, 2010. The reinstatement was opposed by Javier, but he lost appeals made to the CSC.

Alba, upon the advice of the CSC, continued to report for work without pay for nearly three years after Javier ordered her dismissal.

“I stopped working in May 2013 because I ran out of resources,” she said.

She decided to help her husband sell fruits, onions, garlic and tomatoes first to her friends at the provincial capitol and then later at a public market in San Jose.

The CSC, on June 3, issued an order charging Javier  with indirect contempt for refusing to reinstate Alba and directed him to  pay her back wages and benefits. But the governor refused to comply with the order.

Alba said several of her former fellow employees and friends had wanted to visit her in her tent but were fearful of getting the ire of those in the office of the governor.

On Sept. 5, the General Services Office of the province sent her a letter, asking her to leave the plaza because she had no permit to stay there. Alba defied this order.

“It is my constitutional right to [peacefully assemble] and seek redress of grievance. And besides, the plaza is under the jurisdiction of the municipality of San Jose,” she said.

Governor Javier has no plans of reinstating Alba as he maintains that her position no longer exists.

He said in a phone interview that he had questioned the CSC order at the Court of Appeals.

“It is unfair to the province that after enjoying the perks and higher salaries for two years when she was promoted, she now wants to go back to her previous position because her coterminous position ended in 2010,” Javier said.

He also questioned the CSC’s authority to cite him in contempt.

Javier said he would allow Alba to hold protest action at the plaza  but not put up a tent there.

“The tent is an eyesore,”  Javier said.

“Any structure can only be put up there for a limited period. She has practically appropriated a portion of the plaza for herself and her family,” the governor added.

He said the provincial government would dismantle Alba’s tent if she refused to remove it and file a malicious mischief complaint against her.

“We will not bodily remove her. We cannot prevent her from [protesting] because that is her right,” Javier said.

He said Alba could  instead continue her protest at the covered grandstand at the plaza.

Alba’s case is not Javier’s only brush with the CSC.

On July 30, the CSC charged Javier with the same offense over the dismissal of another provincial government employee, information officer Eric Otayde.

In an eight-page resolution, the CSC charged Javier with “unjustified refusal” to reinstate Otayde as Information Officer IV and ordered the governor to pay him back wages and benefits.

The CSC said Javier had shown “deliberate and stubborn refusal” to implement the commission’s orders on Otayde’s case.

The resolution was issued by CSC Chair Francisco Duque III and Commissioners Robert Martinez and Nieves Osorio.

Javier ordered the dismissal of Otayde in August 2010 claiming that Otayde was coterminous with then Governor Perez.

Otayde, closely associated with Perez, questioned his termination at the CSC.