Fate of Iloilo's guv, 2 Capitol execs up in CA hearing today
Legal minds of the government and private lawyers of the Iloilo People's Graftwatch of Iloilo will battle it off today (Monday) with counsels of Iloilo Governor Neil Tupas Sr and Board Members Domingo Oso Jr. (Fourth District) and Cecilia Capadosa (Second District). That is, if plans push through as set by the 19th Division of the Court of Appeals (CA) in Cebu City in a hearing called relative to a CA case docketed as SP No. 02419.
At the center of the CA 'event' is the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) issued at the close of office hours of January 17 which saved Tupas and the two board members from the dismissal orders of the Office of the Ombudsman.
The trio's fate was brought by graft charges that found them guilty alongside the accessory penalties of perpetual disqualification from government service and employ and forfeiture of benefits.
To recall, CA Associate Justice Francisco Acosta restrained government agents and officials from effecting the dismissal orders with the CA Resolution concurred by Associate Justices Isaias Dicdican and Agustin Dizon.
The TRO carries a 60-day effectivity "unless earlier lifted or dissolved" and "until further orders from ths Court," the two-page CA order went.
Standing as petitioners, Tupas Sr., Oso Jr. and Capadosa hurled before the CA "respondents" Tanodbayan Merceditas Gutierrez of the Office of the Ombudsman, Secretary Ronaldo Puno of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Iloilo Vice Governor Roberto Armada, Board Member Manny Gallar and Iloilo People's Graftwatch lawyer Hyptie Correa, former Judge Virgilio Sindico, Pio Lujan and Monsignor Meliton Oso, brother of the "petitioner" board member.
The CA hearing as set at 2 p.m. today will determine the propriety of the issuance of a writ of Preliminary Injunction.
Meantime, sedition charges filed against Tupas and a number of key Capitol personalities will be handled by the Office of the Ombudsman following the inhibition sought by the group against the hearing of such before the Iloilo City Prosecutors Office.
Such alongside the insistence of the Philippine National Police that corresponding police operation that saw some 200 police personnel and the elite Regional Mobile Group inside the Capitol building last January 17 was not an 'overkill' but a legitimate police operation and appropriate response to what the Tupas camp did in defying the dismissal order.