PROSECUTOR Vicente Mañalac is at it again. He filed a complaint for insubordination against Provincial Prosecutor Jane Petralba before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas last week, accusing her of insubordination.

Her supposed crime—not complying with his memo to have the cubicles beside his old office at the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor cleaned.

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“Please clean those rooms now…not by yourself but by the janitors,” the memo, dated Sept. 11, 2009 and addressed to Petralba, read. “It stinks when you go in.”

Mañalac was the prosecutor who recommended the indictment of Cedric Devinadera for the murder of Alona Bacolod-Ecleo. The case was widely seen as a ploy to get Ruben Ecleo Jr. off the hook for parricide.

The insubordination charge, if not the Sept. 11 memo, is something Petralba laughed off in an interview.

“I am supposedly higher-ranking. How can I be charged by him with insubordination?” she posed. Petralba is ranked Prosecutor 4 while Mañalac sits as Prosecutor 3.

Petralba also has a higher salary grade.

“Besides, that is no longer his office. He is no longer detailed with the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor,” she added.

Other than her alleged failure to follow his orders, Mañalac also charged Petralba with unjust vexation, malicious mischief and conduct unbecoming.

The charge focused on Petralba’s supposed act of having maintenance workers at the Palace of Justice climb in and enter his cubicle.

Petralba admitted she has been trying to take Mañalac’s cubicle back, saying the office needs it as work area for three new prosecutors who are joining the office.

She issued a memorandum to administrative officer Cecil Gadrinab and directed that all “unused offices/cubicles shall be vacated as soon as possible,” including those assigned to persons no longer rendering service to the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor.

Moreover, she said, there have been persistent reports that the assistant regional state prosecutor is using the cubicle as a place where he calls in people that he issues subpoenas to.

The addressees of the subpoenas, she said, aren’t facing any complaints before the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor.

“Atty. Cynthia Cañete showed me a subpoena issued to her client and it didn’t involve an Office of the Provincial Prosecutor case. I thought it was a simple mistake but my staff said otherwise,” Petralba said.

“I don’t know what his purpose is. Why issue subpoena to somebody who doesn’t have a case here?” she posed.

But Mañalac isn’t giving in.

Mañalac issued his own memorandum to Gadrinab last Aug. 24.

“You are hereby directed to cease and desist from carrying out any verbal/written orders from the Provincial Prosecutor which are administratively illegal and downright unethical,” the memo read.

He issued a separate memorandum to Petralba last Aug. 28.

“You are not allowed to use a cubicle already used by a DOJ official. Violation of this directive will be considered insubordination and any person committing grave coercion will be subject to warrantless arrest,” he said.

Last Oct. 6, Mañalac issued a memorandum reassigning a staff member at Petralba’s office to become his legal assistant.

The staff member, Emilia Ismael, is the office’s casher and sole bonded collection agent.

“I wrote to the justice department to inform them that henceforth, the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor will not be collecting filing fees and fees for the subscription of
affidavits because our only bonded collection officer has been reassigned,” Petralba said.

Petralba stressed, though, that Mañalac is in no position to be issuing memos because, ranks notwithstanding, only Regional State Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane should do so.

She also clarified that she never had anybody try to enter Mañalac’s cubicle, saying Gadrinab wrote the maintenance department after noticing that Mañalac left his electric fan on for four straight days and was afraid of a building fire. (KNR)