COA chairman invokes P-Noy as alibi to overstay

Reynaldo Villar is posing another excuse to overstay as head of the Commission on Audit. His new alibi is the strongest there is: President Noynoy Aquino. Because P-Noy has not named a replacement, Villar says he will stay for as long as it takes.

No one at the COA’s regular Monday flag ceremony or elsewhere can beat that line. Invoking the President trumps all the points raised by COA predecessors why Villar should have stepped down on Feb. 2, 2011. It is the best refutation any beleaguered official can sic on critics. “’Yan ang gusto ni Presidente (The President so desires)” connotes “malakas ako sa kanya (I am influential with him).”

Villar’s justification supersedes his old defense. He initially claimed that his term did not end last Feb. 2, after serving four years as commissioner and three as chairman. Supposedly his appointment in 2008 as chairman gained him seven new years of tenure, pushing back his retirement to 2015. Villar has a justice department opinion to back this up. But since it’s vague, he is employing instead the President-has-not-replaced-me line.

It’s a risky gambit, though. By insisting on overstaying, Villar could send a bad message to one and all. That is, that we need not voluntarily obey the Constitution — until and unless compelled by the President.

* * *

Villar’s case has in fact been with the Supreme Court since July 2010. In seeking to void Villar’s appointment as COA chief, law professor Dennis Funa rereads the Constitution’s Article IX-D, The Commission on Audit, Section 1 (2): “The Chairman and (two) Commissioners shall be appointed by the President with the consent of the Commission on Appointments for a term of seven years without reappointment. Of those first appointed, the Chairman shall hold office for seven years, one Commissioner for five years, and the other Commissioner for three years, without reappointment. Appointment to any vacancy shall be only for the unexpired portion of the predecessor. In no case shall any Member be appointed or designated in a temporary or acting capacity.”

Funa then recounts the facts: Villar first was named commissioner on Feb. 7, 2004, for a seven-year term up to Feb. 2, 2011, confirmed by the CA on Mar. 16, 2004. When chairman Guillermo Carague retired on Feb. 2, 2008, Villar was designated acting chairman from Feb. 4-Apr. 14, 2008. On Apr. 18, 2008, he was reappointed chairman, with term up to Feb. 2, 2011, confirmed by the CA on June 11, 2008.

Funa says Villar’s postings thrice violated the letter and intent of the Constitution, to wit:

• Prohibition on reappointment. The designation as acting chairman already flouted the fundamental law. But the elevation to full chairman was a clear reappointment. Funa cites the SC’s 2002 ruling in Matibag v. Benipayo, which gave four examples of reappointments. Two of the four cover Villar, that is, no Commissioner who resigns may rejoin, or take over a vacancy resulting from death or resignation of a Member. Funa also quotes the venerable Justice J.B.L. Reyes’s 1962 dissent in Vissara v. Miraflor: “(T)he promotion of Dr. Gaudencio Garcia from Associate Commissioner to Chairman of the Commission . . . violated the constitutional prohibition against . . . reappointment.” Too, (later Chief) Justice Roberto Concepcion in the same case: “The promotional appointment of Commissioner Garcia on May 12, 1960 as Chairman of the Commission . . . violated the constitutional injunction against reappointment.”

• Regular rotation system. Fr. Joaquin Bernas, one of the Charter’s authors, explained the reason for staggering the first appointees’ terms into seven, five and three years. That is, “to achieve continuity by not allowing the term of all Commissioners to expire all at one time.” He stressed: “Every two years the term of one Commissioner expires, leaving always two veteran Commissioners behind.” Funa says that Villar, in claiming to be retireable in 2015, breaks this cycle.

• Term of office. In deliberating Villar’s chairmanship, the CA noted the constitutional infirmities. It confirmed him nonetheless, but only up to Feb. 2, 2011. So Villar cannot now claim to a new seven-year tenure, Funa says, for it goes against the intent of the Charter as stated by 1986 Constitutional Commissioner Christian Monsod: “If the Gentleman (sic) will read the whole Article, she will notice that there is no reappointment of any kind and, therefore, as a whole there is no way that somebody can serve for more than seven years.”

* * *

Rent is on its third musical run in Manila. Rent heads can’t seem to get enough of the Pulitzer Prize – and Tony Award-winning play. The imaginative rock retelling of Puccini’s opera La Boheme, set in New York City’s Lower East Side, enthralls young and old. Truly universal is the love-hope theme that drives a group of struggling young artists, even if starving or stricken with mysterious deadly AIDS.

Rent’s 2011 approach is fresher and bolder under Robbie Guevara’s overall direction. The cast includes some of the most talented theater artists, in most striking scenes: Gian Magdangal, Sheree Bautista, Ciara Sotto, OJ Mariano, Job Bautista, Fredison Lo, Jenny Villegas, Carla Guevara-Laforteza, Mian Dimacali, and Lorenz Martinez.

Play dates: February 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, March 4, 5, 6; Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3:30 p.m., and Sundays at 4:30 p.m.; Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Ayala corner Gil Puyat Avenues, Makati.

For tickets call: (02) 5575860, (02) 5867105, or (0917) 5545560; or visit www.9workstheatrical.com; or Ticket World (02) 8919999.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]