Suspended Pasay councilors question replacements

Seven of ten suspended councilors in Pasay City have filed a petition with the Manila Regional Trial Court questioning the recent appointments of six officials to the city council.

Councilors Richard Advincula, Arnel Regino Arceo, Noel Bayona, Lexter Ibay, Irish Pineda, Jose Antonio Roxas and Edita Vergel De Dios also signed as a complainant in the case lodged against Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and newly-appointed councilors Erlinda Hilario, Emilio Langomez, Regulus Lim, Reynaldo Mateo, Johnny Santiago and Mary Grace Bustonera-Santos.

They maintained that Ermita erred in appointing the new councilors, saying it violated the city charter.

"The appointees must belong to a political party of the officials who are to be replaced. Unfortunately, not only are the temporary appointees not members, but they have even been rejected by the people of Pasay in the previous elections," they stated in their complaint.

"The Charter of Pasay is there to be followed in its wisdom in decreeing that the permanent or acting appointee must be suitable and belongs to the same party as the one to be replaced."

Citing a provision in the Constitution, they questioned Langomez and Santiago’s appointments because the two are barangay captains.

"No elective official shall be eligible for appointment or designation in any capacity to any public office or position during his tenure," the complainants stated, quoting the constitutional provision.

Advincula and his colleagues said Langomez and Santiago’s tenures should first be terminated before they could be appointed to the council.

The duly-elected councilors likewise questioned the credibility of their replacements. "The track record of those newly-appointed acting members of the Sanggunian showed that either they lost in the previous elections, are illegally holding concurrent government positions, or have political inclinations."

They also argued: "The appointment of a replacement of an elective official can be done only by the President in the case of petitioning councilors, not by the Executive Secretary."

Last September, the Ombudsman suspended the councilors along with Mayor Wenceslao "Peewee" Trinidad, Vice Mayor Antonino Calixto and three other individuals over an alleged anomalous garbage collection contract.

The Department of Interior and Local Government later ordered their suspension.

On October 18, Ermita, with authority from President Arroyo, appointed Hilario, Langomez, Lim, Mateo, Santiago and Bustonera-Santos as acting councilors.