Court decision revives talks on Aguinaldo rule

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

THE decision that excludes Provincial Board (PB) member Thadeo Ouano and Lapu-Lapu Rep. Arturo Radaza from among those to be dismissed from service for the lamppost controversy is reviving criticism against the Aguinaldo Doctrine.

The doctrine views re-election as public condonation of an administrative violation committed during the previous term. Over the years, it has saved a lot from liability over violations that would have otherwise caused their dismissal from service.

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To others, the Aguinaldo Doctrine is just plain “stupid.”

And some of those holding this opinion are using the Sun.Star Cebu website, which ran a story on Ouano and Radaza’s exclusion from administrative liability over the lamppost controversy yesterday, as their medium of expression.

“You should have hanged those rascals on the same lamppost that they made off with the public’s money from,” stated someone using the handle “Juanaguanta2,” apparently to the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas, which penned the original ruling, and the Court of Appeals, which affirmed it.

“This so-called doctrine was hatched by politicians in Congress to protect their corrupt asses,” another poster, using the handle “James2”, said.

Admin only

“No wonder these crooks even kill to get re-elected; (this is) so they don’t have to go to jail when they steal while holding office,” added “Garciajr.”

The Aguinaldo Doctrine though only covers the administrative aspect of a case. A re-elected public official is still criminally liable for acts committed during the previous term.

In the lamppost case, Ouano remains charged with anti-graft law violations before the Sandiganbayan.

Likewise, it did not come from the legislature. Instead, it is an offshoot of a 1992 Supreme Court ruling in the certiorari and prohibition case Rodofo Aguinaldo filed against Luis Santos, then Secretary of the Department of Local Government, and Melvin Vargas, then acting governor of Cagayan Province.

Aguinaldo, in the suit, questioned Santos’s March 19, 1990 decision in an administrative case that dismissed him from service as Cagayan Province governor for supporting the 1989 coup d’état launched by factions of the military against the government of Corazon Aquino.

The governor faced the investigation and was preventively suspended for 60 days. He was eventually sacked and Vargas, the vice governor then, was appointed as his replacement.

Aguinaldo contested the ruling and, while the case was still pending, managed to run and win his old post back in the 1992 elections.

Cases were again filed and Aguinaldo found reprieve when the SC said the interior and local government order that sacked him had not yet attained finality, making his candidacy and win valid.

The SC then ruled on the case proper, saying “offenses committed, or acts done, during a previous term are generally held not to furnish cause for removal.”

“The underlying theory is that each term is separate from other terms, and that the reelection to office operates as a condonation of the officer’s misconduct to the extent of cutting off the right to remove him therefore,” the ruling read.

“The Court should ever remove a public officer for acts done prior to his present term of office. To do otherwise would be to deprive the people of their right to elect their officers. When a people have elected a man to office, it must be assumed that they did this with knowledge of his life and character, and that they disregarded or forgave his fault or misconduct, if he had been guilty of any. It is not for the court, by reason of such fault or misconduct, to practically overrule the will of the people,” it added.

Good look

Lawyer Miguel Silos of the Villaraza Cruz Marcelo and Angangco Law Offices, the law office of former Tanodbayan Simeon Marcelo, warned of how the Aguinaldo Doctrine could “perpetuate misdeeds by public officers” in a 2009 paper for the Philippine Law Journal.

Entitled “A Re-Examination of the Doctrine of Condonation of Public Offices,” the paper urged that the High Tribunal “take a long and hard look at the doctrine, this time in its entirety” when the issue next presents itself.

“Its exception and rationales should be carefully considered since such exceptions may be more fitting to a particular set of facts instead of an automatic application of the rule,” Silos wrote.

He pointed out how the Constitution, as it evolved from 1935 to 1973 and up to the present 1987 charger, became “more and more strict to the adherence of good conduct.”

“The 1987 Charter makes plain that corruption, irresponsibility and even inefficiency are not to be tolerated and those who offend against these provisions must be removed from their positions of servants of the public,” he said.