ShareThisHigh Court stops EO
on midnight appointees,
President reacts angrily
MANILA (PinoyNews) — The Supreme Court has issued a status quo ante order stopping the implementation of President Aquino’s Executive Order No. 2 which recalled and revoked the so-called midnight appointments by then President Arroyo, triggering an emotional outburst from the Chief Executive virtually assailing the High Court for its action.
President Noynoy Aquino
Aquino immediately called on the High Court to exercise judicial prudence “at a time when the Filipino people deserve confidence-building measures from all our institutions” in reaction to the status quo ante order on EO 2 granted by the High Tribunal to Bai Omera Dianalan-Lucman of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos, who was among those affected by the EO 2 he issued last July.
Lucman refused to vacate her post with a Cabinet rank resulting to two Cabinet members running the NCMF, formerly the Office of Muslim Affairs, the second one being the appointee of Aquino. The situation has affected the processing of papers of Muslims who would go on an annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
Earlier, the President and the Supreme Court clashed when the High Court issued an order stopping the House of Representatives from continuing with its impeachment proceedings against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. Much earlier, the High Court expressed dismay after the Department of Budget Management rejected the magistrates’ proposed P27.1-billion budget for 2011, and allocated only P14.3 billion for the Courts.
But the first clash of the President with the High Court was when he contested President Arroyo’s appointment of Chief Justice Renato Corona, prompting him to get Senior Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales to swear him as Chief Executive instead of Corona.
Aquino lost in that tussle when the Supreme Court s upheld Corona’s appointment as Chief Justice, and Mr. Aquino has since recognized him as such.
Mr. Aquino said he kept his silence on the Ombudsman case as it tested “the limits of its constitutional authority.”
“We kept our silence” on that issue, he said, but warned that the SQA order on Lucman’s petition “could precipitate a clash with another separate, coequal branch of government.”
Aquino defended firmly his EO 2. “We had to issue EO 2 because there were people who accepted illegal appointments, knowingly, thereby becoming part of a conspiracy to impede and to thwart our people’s clamor for a return to good governance,” the President said.
The Supreme Court, however, stood firm on its “status quo ante order” against the implementation of Executive Order No. 2
SC Spokesman and Court Administrator Atty. Jose Midas Marquez said that the Court remained an institution governed by law and “not by passing emotions and daily polls,” stressing that part of the judicial review of the High Court was the power to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) or a “status quo ante order”.
Marquez said that such power was not merely a privilege.
The SC Court Administrator explained that the “status quo ante order” was issued by the High Court after a thorough deliberation made by the SC en banc on the petition filed by Lucman, one of those who questioned the implementation of EO No. 2 before the SC.
Others who questioned the legality of EO No. 2 before the SC were lawyer Eddie Tamondong, director of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, Assistant Justice Secretary Jose Arturo de Castro, and Atty. Cheloi Garafil, counsel at the Office of the Solicitor General.
Marquez said that to prove that the SC does not infringe into the separation of powers under the Constitution, only Lucman was covered by the “status quo ante order” it issued Wednesday and the same cannot be used as a remedy by the other midnight appointees.
He assured that the SC would give more priority to the general welfare and well-being of the majority of the people and the maintenance of the principles embodied in the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
“Midnight” appointments are those appointments made two months before the May 10, 2010 synchronized automated national and local elections as defined under EO No. 2.
Reacting to the High Court order, Quezon City Prosecutor Dindo Venturanza filed a 50-page petition against EO 2 with the Supreme Court, making him the fifth purported midnight appointee to seek a TRO on Mr. Aquino’s order.
Named as respondents in Venturanza’s petition were Mr. Aquino, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, Prosecutor General Claro Arellano and Assistant State Prosecutor Richard Anthony Fadullon.
Apart from a TRO, Venturanza sought an SQA order on EO 2, and the conduct of oral arguments on its validity.
He questioned De Lima’s order replacing him and appointing Fadullon as the officer in charge of the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office on the strength of EO 2.
Aquino said he has put in people “who shared our aims. Our appointees allowed us to discover questionable deals, which we immediately stopped.”
“For instance, our appointees uncovered close to a billion pesos worth of anomalous contracts that had been entered into during the past administration. We have canceled those contracts and saved the government hundreds of millions of pesos,” he said.
He said while the SC order applies only to one of four petitioners “let me be clear about its far-reaching consequences. By focusing on the minutiae of the case, the SC effectively turned back the clock. It dishonors the decency of those who had the courtesy to resign.”
“The potential result of this will be chaos and paralysis in the Executive Branch of government as the legitimacy of officials appointed to replace those already removed will be cast in doubt,” the President said.
Mr. Aquino said the order will embolden hundreds of similarly-situated appointees of the previous administration, who had already been replaced, resigned or recalled to demand their reinstatement or retention. “And having returned to their previous posts, what can we expect from people who accepted illegal appointments to begin with?” he asked.
The Chief Executive said “the order has the potential to derail or even nullify our efforts to uncover and reverse midnight deals, streamline the bureaucracy and implement reforms to bring back good governance. It will enable those who had participated in midnight deals to at the very least, cover their tracks if not complete acts inimical to public interest.”
Going beyond the Executive branch, he said, “the order comes shortly after the SC issued a similar status quo ante order preventing the House of Representatives from acting on the impeachment complaints against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.”
“The members of the House protested what they believed was an intrusion into their own constitutional powers,” he said.
He said the Executive Department kept silent when the SC prevented the House from continuing its impeachment proceedings.
“That recent action of the Supreme Court tests the limits of its constitutional authority and this latest order could precipitate a clash with another separate, co-equal branch of government,” the President said.
He said that “our democracy was built on the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, hence the three branches of government. We therefore appeal, as a co-equal branch of government, for the Supreme Court to consider the implications of its order.”
The President said the order comes at a time when “we had already taken significant steps forward and public confidence in our institutions is being restored. We have saved the Filipino people billions of pesos by rescinding contracts that have been uncovered after the midnight appointees have been removed from office. The economy is on an upturn. This order can set back all of these achievements,” he said.
Asked if he was confident about getting the SC’s cooperation, the President said “we are all at the service of our people. We hope they can broaden their view and see the implications of this singular act.”