Thursday, March 27, 2008 Ombud ready to hire ex-PAO lawyers
THE Chief Public Attorney arrived in Cebu City yesterday to ask the Regional Trial Court (RTC) to dismiss an injunction case filed to stop her order to transfer two subordinates.
This as Deputy Ombudsman Pelagio Apostol expressed his intent to “absorb” to the anti-graft office those public attorneys whose appointments Chief Public Attorney Persida Rueda-Acosta refused to renew.
The lawyers, as well as the two subordinates who filed the injunction case, were among those who signed a petition asking Acosta to transfer the regional chief of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) 7, Maria G-Ree Calinawan, outside Cebu.
Public Attorneys Alfred Oguis, Irish Inabangan, Karen Gonzalez, Luanne Ivy Cabatingan and Rizalina Zozobrado, all previously assigned in Cebu City, as well as Graciano Espina Jr., previously of the PAO in Danao and Desiree Joyce Santiago, previously of the PAO in Bogo, are now officially out of government service.
Their last official act was executed last Monday, when they cleared their tables and turned over their case records to the new lawyers Acosta appointed to replace them.
They would have done this earlier, they said. But, during a conference at the Office of the Ombudsman last March 11, Assistant Ombudsman Virginia Santiago told them she’d seek a status quo order from Acosta “in the exigency of the service.”
Detainees’ support
Some 205 detainees of the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC), plus 31 detainees from the BBRC women’s dormitory, and 25 more lawyers belonging to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu City Chapter, yesterday signed a manifesto of support for the beleaguered attorneys.
On the other hand, Public Attorneys Elisa Porio and PAO Administrative Officer Carmelita Dacanay remain in the Cebu City office only by virtue of a restraining order issued by RTC Executive Judge Fortunato de Gracia.
Yesterday’s hearing was brief. It came on the heels of a two-hour conference that RTC Judge Ramon Daomilas called to mediate the situation. Mediation failed.
Acosta, escorted by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7, represented herself and the PAO with Atty. Howard Areza, another Manila-based PAO lawyer, during the trial proper.
They asked the judge not to entertain the petition for injunction and instead hear first the motion to dismiss that they filed.
Family troubles?
During oral arguments, Acosta and Areza said their motion to dismiss cites the issue of jurisdiction. Resolving the petition for injunction without treating the motion will make whatever resolution is reached invalid.
The hearing resumes today.
In the motion to dismiss, Acosta moved for the immediate lifting of the temporary restraining order of the RTC Cebu executive judge.
Acosta, in an interview after the trial, denied that her refusal to renew the appointments of Oguis, Inabangan, Gonzalez, Cabatingan, Zozobrado, Espina and Santiago, as well as and the transfer of Porio and Dacanay, were in retaliation for the petition against Calinawan.
She however said the problem at the regional PAO office should have been “settled internally.” She likened how the petition against Calinawan became public to letting the neighbors know about a family problem.
But as prodigal as the eight lawyers may seem to Acosta, they are welcome at the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas, says Deputy Ombudsman Apostol.
He wants them to submit their applications immediately, adding that the office is in need of good and honest trial lawyers.
The idea drew support from Santiago. All eight lawyers are her former students at the University of San Carlos College of Law. (KNR)
