Pantabangan mayor seeks power over town funds

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—After the Court of Appeals (CA) thrashed a revised order of the Office of the Ombudsman to unseat him, Mayor Lucio Uera of Pantabangan town in Nueva Ecija has asked the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to certify him as the town’s mayor.

Uera requested the certification in a June 25 letter to Florida Dijan, director of the DILG Central Luzon based in this Pampanga capital.

This was a week after the CA, in a decision promulgated on June 18, reinstated and declared Uera the mayor of Pantabangan.

Uera told Dijan that the certification was required by banks “in order to normalize our financial transactions with them and to be able to withdraw for payments of almost two months [of] delayed salaries and wages of our employees.” As of Friday, Dijan had not yet issued the certification. “I have requested guidance from the [DILG central office’s legal department],” she told the Inquirer.

The CA’s former Special Seventh Division said the doctrine of condonation, also known as the Aguinaldo Doctrine, did not apply to Uera since he was not elected for two successive terms after his term in 2004-2007.

The doctrine condones the administrative liabilities of elected officials when they are “reelected to the same position in the immediately succeeding term,” said the CA decision penned by Associate Justice Stephen Cruz.

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales in 2013 found Uera guilty of grave misconduct and grave abuse of authority for suspending and terminating 44 employees in 2005. Morales modified the order in February 2015 by dismissing the mayor from the service.

The DILG installed Vice Mayor Ruben Huerta as mayor to serve the unexpired term of Uera.

On March 24, the CA, acting on Uera’s very urgent ex-parte motion, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) “to maintain the status quo ante,” for 60 days.

“The main issue of the controversy [was] the legality of disciplining an elective municipal official for a wrongful act committed by him during his immediately preceding term of office,” said the CA decision.

In the absence of a precedent, the CA reviewed decisions by American courts. “The weight of authorities, however, seems to incline to the rule denying the right to remove one from office because of misconduct during a prior term, to which we fully subscribe,” the CA said.

According to the CA, the mayor’s issuance of memorandums “does not constitute grave misconduct and grave abuse of authority but a part of procedural and substantive due process.”

Uera also won by technicality because the Ombudsman’s order to unseat him was issued while the mayor “perfected his appeal” at the CA against the resolution finding him guilty of the grave misconduct and grave abuse of authority.

“The Ombudsman had already lost jurisdiction to issue the challenged order during the pendency of the appeal at CA,” the CA said.

On Tuesday, violence erupted between supporters of Uera and Huerta. With a report from Armand Galang, Inquirer Central Luzon