Poll lawyer questions appointment of ARMM OICs before SC

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) was asked yesterday to prevent the Palace from appointing officers-in-charge (OICs) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) as incumbent elected officials there vacate their posts at the end of this month.

In a 68-page memorandum, election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said it is incumbent upon the SC to direct the executive department to cease and desist from its plan to appoint OICs in the region pending final resolution of the case involving the postponement of the ARMM polls to 2013.

Macalintal, one of the petitioners questioning the legality of Republic Act 10153 (the law synchronizing the ARMM polls with the May 2013 midterm national elections), said the appointment of OICs would violate Section 18, Article X of the Constitution, which provides for the right of the ARMM electorate to choose their elective officials.

“For sure, the appointment of OICs violates this provision because they are not the representatives of the people as these OICs owe their position, loyalty and allegiance to the President as the appointing power, thus making the ARMM the extension of the Office of the President through this unconstitutional powers of appointing OICs for the ARMM,” he argued.

He said the Constitution is express in saying that the “executive department and the legislative assembly of the ARMM shall be elective and representative of the constituent political units.”

Macalintal proposed that the SC allows incumbent elective ARMM officials “to perform their functions until further order by the court.”

He also asked the SC to direct the Commission on Elections “to continue its preparation for the holding of the ARMM election to be scheduled on a date reasonably close to August 8, 2011 as provided under Section 6 of the Omnibus Elections in cases where Comelec is authorized to postpone or reset elections due to unavoidable circumstances such as this erroneous passage of RA 10153 that derailed the scheduled August 8, 2011 ARMM elections.”

“Vesting the President with the power to appoint the ARMM OICs and cancelling the August 8 scheduled elections smacks of the kind of tyrannical government that just two decades ago, former President Corazon Aquino – the country’s beloved late President and the mother of the country’s current President – valiantly fought for and ousted,” he said.