CAGAYAN de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno may now sleep a little easier after a Court of Appeals (CA) resolution released Wednesday afternoon affirmed an earlier action by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to recognize him as city mayor over Caesar Ian Acenas whom the DILG installed as mayor last week.
In a resolution dated November 18, the CA’s Special 22nd Division ruled that the November 13 temporary restraining order (TRO) it granted in favor of Moreno and Glenn Bañez, officer-in-charge of the City Treasurer’s Office, stopped the Ombudsman dismissal order and not just the service of the order.
The resolution also said the TRO was not rendered moot and academic by the DILG’s service of the Ombudsman dismissal order on November 12, noting that the service “was not consummated as the decision was served improperly by the DILG.
Moreno had earlier argued that no attempt was made by the DILG to personally serve the order.
The DILG, in its manifestation submitted to the court, had said that the posting of the order at the ground floor of the Legislative Building of the City Hall Compound was resorted to for security reasons.
Dismissal from service, the CA resolution said, is "continuing in nature and has a continuing effect" as averred by Moreno.
Penned by Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul Inting with Associate Justices Edgardo Camello and Pablito Perez concurring, the CA ruling directed the DILG to restore the status quo at City Hall.
“In the instant case, the last, actual, peaceable and uncontested condition before the DILG the assailed (sic) Ombudsman Decision is petitioner Oscar Moreno sitting as the elected Cagayan de Oro City Mayor and Glenn Bañez as the Officer-in-Charge of the City Treasurer’s Office,” the resolution reads.
“That precisely is the status referred to in a TRO taking into account the litany of decisions defining how a TRO operates,” it adds.
“In fact, the DILG has correctly understood and captured the concept and essence of a restraining order,” the resolution said.
Lawyer Dale Bryan Mordeno, head of Moreno’s legal team, said the CA resolution should put to rest the issue of who between Moreno and Acenas is the mayor.
Mordeno said the CA resolution should also prompt Acenas to desist from discharging functions ascribed only to local chief executives and revert to his previous position as the city’s vice mayor.
“If Acenas persists in functioning as the mayor, he can be charged with usurpation of authority,” Mordeno said.
The CA resolution came at the heels of a letter addressed to Moreno signed by DILG Undersecretary for local government Austere Panadero in which the DILG said it is temporarily recognizing the former as mayor of the city.
The DILG took note of the November 13 CA resolution which states that the August 14, 2015 decision of the Ombudsman dismissing Moreno and Bañez "is not yet final and executory in view of the pendency of the motion for reconsideration (MR) before the Office of the Ombudsman."
Moreno had filed his MR on November 9, 2015.
The Ombudsman, under their prescribed rules, is mandated to act on MRs three days upon receipt of the motion.
Acenas allies had earlier criticized the DILG for coming out with a ‘letter’ dated November 17, recognizing Moreno’s "performance of functions as City Mayor" pending an order from the CA.
“Dili makahatag ang DILG og kaugalingong order kay nahadlok pud sila nga mahimo silang liable sa ilang gibuhat kang Acenas nga ilang na giserve ang order, gi-declare nga naa nay vacancy unya humanag take oath. Sa karon ila na sang giingon nga ayaw una kay lain among gi-recognize,” lawyer Leon Gan, also a city councilor, said.
Lawyer Janet Nuñez, a member of Acenas’ legal team, also pointed out that Acenas could not be unseated by the DILG through a letter, a copy of which Acenas was not even furnished.
Nuñez said Acenas assumed the mayoralty after a vacancy was declared following the DILG’s service of the dismissal order on November 12.
“Acenas was installed legally,” Nuñez said.
“He can only be removed legally,” she said.
Asked for comment on the CA’s November 18 resolution, Nuñez, in a text message, said they have yet to receive a copy of the order.
Nuñez said Acenas, while not a party to the case, is watching developments closely. (With reports from Alwen Saliring)