THE Department of the Interior and Local Government maintained on Tuesday that the Court of Appeals has not invalidated the assumption into office by Makati City Acting Mayor Romulo “Kid” Peña.
In an e-mailed statement, DILG Undersecretary Peter Irving Corvera clarified that there was no “judicial determination” that Peña’s assumption as acting mayor was irregular.
“(Thus), the camp of Mayor Jejomar Erwin ‘Junjun’ Binay cannot consider the acts of the Acting Mayor as invalid or without effect,” he said.
The DILG stressed “the fact that Mayor Binay did not question the suspension order at the level of the Office of the Ombudsman makes his raising the same issue before the CA procedurally questionable.”
“He jumped to the CA when he could have first exhausted all possible remedies at the Office of the Ombudsman,” Corvera added.
This came as Binay insisted that he is still the Makati City mayor despite the Office of the Ombudsman’s order suspending him for six months over corruption allegations against him arising from the overpriced Makati City Hall building 2.
Binay maintains that the temporary restraining order from the CA froze his suspension from service.
But the DILG, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima were one in saying that the TRO was “moot and academic” because Peña had been sworn in as acting mayor on March 16 hours before the TRO was issued.
Corvera explained that the resort to the CA was precipitate on the part of Binay “perhaps in the hope that the appellate court would grant him immediately the relief he had sought. However, it came a tad late, and we believe, like the Office of the Ombudsman, that the relief sought had already been overtaken by events.”
The DILG, through Corvera, also appealed to Binay “to serve the best interest of the people of Makati by allowing Acting Mayor Peña to take over the reins of the Makati city government since the operations of the local government unit would grind to a halt should two contending political leaders claim the mayorship.”
Corvera said the DILG’s appeal “extends to other city officials who have been suspended by the Ombudsman on the basis of the filing of a complaint by the special panel of investigators for the alleged overprice of a contract for architectural design services worth P11.94 million.” AC