Status of Tupas' top aide as provl employee in question
The fate of a top aide of Governor Niel Tupas Sr. as an official and employee of the Iloilo Provincial Government (IPG) now hangs.
In fact, no less than the Civil Service Commission (CSC) wants answers from Tupas as to why his aide, Provincial Administrator Manuel Mejorada remains or should remain in office for said post.
The questions raised following the Court's earlier Decision ordering his exclusion from the voters' list of Barangay Amparo, Pavia, Iloilo. The implication that followed thereafter was that Mejorada is not a resident of Pavia nor of the province, one basic requirement for anybody to be appointed in the post of "Provincial Administrator."
With the case dragging up to the Court of Appeals (CA), latest development now sealed Mejorada's case, at least up to the CA, with the CA's Special Nineteenth Division denying his Petition to set aside the exclusion case against him.
As such, lawyer Cornelio Panes, counsel of petitioners against Mejorada claimed victory while issuing a challenge, "go ahead. Go to the Supreme Court (SC) and fight your lost case. It would be good to find you in the Jurisprudence of the SC."
Docketed as CA-G.R. CEB-SP No.02173, Associate Justice Agustin Dizon found Mejorada's Petition "bereft of merit" thus the denial.
Associate Justices Isaias Dicdican and Priscilla Baltazar-Padilla concurred with the Decision.
Mejorada in his CA Petition moved to set aside his exclusion from the voters' list in Pavia, Iloilo as he prayed for damages since "due to unfounded and malicious suit," he suffered sleepless nights, besmirched reputation and social humiliation.
And considering his stature as provincial official, Mejorada argued to the CA, moral damages of P500,000 was due him alongside thousands more for his legal and litigation expenses. Also, Mejorada told the CA, the exclusion case was nothing but a suit "filed for the sole purpose of molesting and causing him to incur expenses" and it was also baseless and meant to harass him. Mejorada blamed his former boss, Secretary Augusto Boboy Syjuco, Director-General of Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) as the one responsible for all the charges, an act he said that meant to get back at him for exposing Syjuco's anomalies.
On the issue of his residency in Pavia, Mejorada maintains the regularity of such saying he only kept his city address and residence in Jaro, Iloilo City "for convenience only."
And he cannot be excluded in Pavia's voters' list since it was there where he cast his vote in the 2004 elections. Further still, Mejorada charged that the Lower Courts committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or in excess of jurisdiction.
The CA junked his arguments.
"The petition is bereft of merit. It has already been established in the lower courts based on the evidence on record, both documentary and testimonial that petitioner Manuel P. Mejorada is neither a resident nor a domiciliary within the purview of election laws of Brgy. Amparo, Pavia, Iloilo," excerpts of the CA Decision went.
And "untenable" too, the CA averred Mejorada's contention that because he was able to vote in Pavia during the 2004 elections, then he remains a rightful voter of said town.
"As correctly ruled by the RTC, the registry list of voters for use in an election is conclusive on the question as to who have the right to vote in said election. However, the list is not conclusive with respect to future elections," the Decision continued.
There was also no grave abuse of discretion for the part of the lower courts, the CA decided.
"It is our considered view that herein petitioner has not shown any arbitrariness, despotism or capriciousness on the part of the respondent courts in rendering the assailed decisions," the Decision further stated.