Tupas appeals CSC order reinstating Acepcion
Iloilo Governor Niel Tupas Sr. has asked the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to reconsider its earlier ruling restoring Dr. George Acepcion, currently detailed at the Medical/Dental Services-Office of the Governor, to the Ramon Tabiana Memorial District Hospital, in Cabatuan, Iloilo.
Tupas, in a Motion for Reconsideration filed by Provincial Legal Officer Atty. Salvador Cabaluna III, contended that Acepcion “was neither transferred nor reassigned” as he still remained at his official station and plantilla which is the Provincial Health Office (PHO).
Cabaluna cited that on December 7, 2006 the Sangguniang Panlalawigan enacted Appropriation Ordinance No. 2006-07, which took effect January 1, 2007, incorporating that the plantilla position of Chiefs of Hospital I are transferred to the Provincial Health Office.
“Pursuant to said Ordinance, appellee Tupas issued appointments to all current chiefs of hospitals to the rank of ‘Chief of Hospital I’ under the Provincial Health Office, appelant included. Thus, the official plantilla position of chiefs of hospitals is Chief of Hospital I, and their place of assignment the PHO. The station of the Chiefs of Hospital I are no longer the specific hospitals they were previously assigned to but the PHO,” the Motion for Reconsideration reads.
It may be recalled that on July 31, 2006 Tupas issued Office Order 123-2006 reassigning Acepcion to the provincial capitol following the administrative complaint filed against him by several employees of the Ramon Tabiana Memorial District Hospital.
One year after on July 30, 2007 Tupas rendered a decision finding Acepcion “guilty” of “disgraceful and immoral conduct” and meted on him a penalty of one month suspension.
On October 5, 2007 Acepcion wrote the governor that he had already served his suspension and that he would go back his previous assignment. However, the day before (October 4, 2007) Tupas issued Office Order 216-2007 assigning Acepcion to the office he is currently holding.
Cabaluna pointed that: “Appropriation Ordinance No. 2006-07, in effect, clarifies that the position of head of hospital is not a vested right of whosoever named there to. The same ordinance likewise lodges on the appointing authority, Gov. Tupas, in this case, the managerial prerogative of rotating the opportunity of heading a district hospital among qualified medical officers of the Iloilo Provincial Government.”
The Provincial Legal Officer cited that the same prerogative has been exercised by the governor in other district hospitals before “for the exigency of the service, for the best interest of his constituents, not out of spite or malice, to disabuse the mind of the appelant Acepcion.”
“Preventing appellee Tupas or by declaring null and void his act of retaining the services of appellant at the PHO, as what this Honorable Commission does, would be tantamount to nullifying Appropriation Ordinance No. 2006-07 which is beyond the jurisdiction of this Honorable Commission. It will also result to a situation where the Honorable Commission would be directing the Governor to violate an existing valid and enforceable local ordinance,” Cabaluna averred.
