Former mayor says he can’t be tied to lampposts rap due to doctrine

Thursday, November 24, 2011

CEBU Provincial Board (PB) Member Thadeo Ouano and his lawyer yesterday accused Assistant Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago of misinterpreting the Aguinaldo Doctrine.

Atty. Victor Maambong, Ouano’s counsel, said the joint resolution of the ombudsman last May 11, 2011 is a final document, which dismissed the case against his client for being “moot and academic.”

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“There is no mention that my client is perpetually disqualified from holding public office,” Maambong said during a Tapok-Tapok sa Media forum at NS Royal Pension House.

The anti-graft office convicted then Mandaue mayor Ouano administratively in relation to the purchase of allegedly overpriced lampposts, which were installed in the cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit in 2007.

But it ruled that the administrative sanctions became moot because of the Aguinaldo Doctrine. The anti-graft body ruled, though, that the conviction should be reflected in Ouano’s government service records.

Maambong said the Aguinaldo Doctrine applies to Ouano because he (Ouano) was elected PB member, not only in Mandaue City where he was a mayor, but in the entire sixth district.

Maambong said he is willing to argue the case against Santiago in a debate.

Santiago is in Manila and could not be contacted yesterday.

“I could take her (Santiago) biases against me. But I have a family who gets hurt by her wrong interpretation of the law. My grandson even asked me why I am in the TV news again,” Ouano said during the same forum.

Ouano said he is not worried about the case because he is confident the “truth will come out.”

Atty. Alvin Butch Cañares, a former graft investigator, said the application of the Aguinaldo Doctrine on cases like Ouano’s should be looked into.

“There are already calls from certain circles of legal luminaries that the doctrine be revisited. This is perhaps an opportunity to do that,” Cañares said.

Parameters

He added, though, that Ouano’s case does not share the exact parameters as that of the former Cagayan Province governor Rodolfo Aguinaldo, whom the doctrine was named after.

Ouano was not reelected in the poll immediately following the term during which he committed the administrative violation and he was not reelected to the same position, unlike Aguinaldo.

In a 2009 paper for the Philippine Law Journal, Atty. Miguel Silos warned that the Aguinaldo Doctrine could “perpetuate misdeeds by public officers.”

He 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.

“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,” Silos wrote.

As such, Silos added, the doctrine of condonation “directly opposes” the Constitution and, as a result, makes the state “fail in its duty to serve the people and to maintain the public service free from such corrupt and inefficient people.”

Sandiganbayan

Maambong pointed out that one of the criminal cases filed before the Sandiganbayan was already dismissed for insufficient evidence.

In its March 24, 2010 resolution, the Sandiganbayan Second Division stated that the records of the case “would indicate that the manner in which the investigation was handled was hasty and injudicious.”

Cañares said that whatever happens to the doctrine, Ouano is safe.

This is because the anti-graft office had excluded the former mayor from the list of those to be dismissed from the service. The ombudsman ruling was affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

In an interview last Monday, Santiago described as “interesting” the question of whether the ruling finding Ouano guilty of the administrative aspect of the lamppost controversy would affect his future political plans.

This is because the finding of guilt carries with it the ancillary penalty of perpetual disqualification from government service, said Santiago.

But since Ouano could not be booted out of an office that he no longer occupies, the question of whether he should serve the ancillary penalty remains hanging.