Tupas, Armada ordered to stay put as guv, vice-guv
"Normalcy" was officially ordered in the Iloilo Provincial Government with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) heeding the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) of the Court of Appeals (CA).
As such, Governor Niel Tupas is back as the official governor and Board Members Cecilia Capadosa (Second District, Iloilo) and Domingo Oso (Fourth District, Iloilo) back to their seats in the Provincial Board.
Vice-Governor Roberto Armada and Senior Board Member Manny Gallar will also do the same after a week of conflict generated by the Ombudsman order finding Tupas, Capadosa and Oso guilty of an anti-graft charge.
In a Memorandum, the DILG through Undersecretary Wencilito Andanar gave the go-signal for the reassumption into offices of the said provincial officials "until further orders from that Honorable Court (referring to the CA)."
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez who was dragged by the Tupas camp into the controversy and tagged as the key player in the fate of the trio acknowledged the TRO issuance saying "while I believe it may be erroneously issued, but it is the logical move for the DILG. Tupas stays as the governor in the next 60 days.'
Meantime, a formal Motion to Quash the TRO with opposition to the issuance of Writ of Preliminary Injunction and Comment to the Petition was submitted by the Armada camp before the CA in Cebu City.
In an 11-page Motion, the Panes Panes & Edama law office prayed for the immediate lifting of the TRO, the outright denial of the preliminary injunction, the outright dismissal of the Tupas petition "for patently without merit" and "uphold the validity, finality and immediately executory nature of the assailed decisions of the Ombudsman."
Further still was the prayer that Tupas, Capadosa and Oso be fined "for deliberately abusing the processes of this Court in the issuance of a temporary restraining order when they are not entitled thereto because their petition is frivolous, utterly without merit and purposely designed to thwart the legitimate, valid and lawful exercise of government functions."