Friday, January 05, 2007 Election ban may aid Oliva, but hassle Comelec By Linette C. Ramos Sun.Star Staff Reporter With Katrina Nolasco-Tabanao
OUTGOING Cebu City Schools Superintendent Leonilo Oliva’s leadership will not be recognized as far as City Hall and the mayor are concerned.
But at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Cebu City office, poll officers are still undecided as to who will sit in the Election Registration Board (ERB) and in the Board of Canvassers (BOC).
North District Election Officer Marchel Sarno said they will have to ask the Comelec central office for its legal opinion on whether Oliva should continue to sit in both boards.
The hearing of all applications for voter’s registration by the ERB will run from Jan. 8 to 12.
Mayor Tomas Osmeña said yesterday that all his directives and transactions with the schools division office will be addressed to newly appointed Schools Division Superintendent Lorna Rances, not Oliva.
Osmeña expects, though, that Oliva will get to hold on to his post because of the election period, which will start on Jan. 14 and last up to June 13, 2007.
The Omnibus Election Code prohibits the transfer of officers and employees in civil service within the election period.
“As far as I’m concerned, Oliva doesn’t exist in that structure. And the way I look at it, he’s going to be stuck there because there’s an election ban and I think that will be their legal strategy,” he told reporters yesterday.
Speed up
Dr. Oliva requested yesterday that a special raffle be conducted for the civil suit for nullity and injunction he filed against Education Secretary Jesli Lapus and Department of Education (DepEd) Regional Director Carolino Mordeno.
Oliva filed the motion a day after he filed the case against his two immediate superiors. This is in line with his effort to get, at the soonest possible time, a temporary restraining order (TRO) that will stop his transfer.
Cebu Regional Trial Court (RTC) Executive Judge Simeon Dumdum Jr. approved Oliva’s request. Instead of Monday next week, which is the regular day for the raffling of cases in the RTC Civil Division, the case filed by Oliva will be raffled off today.
The order for Oliva’s transfer was issued amid complaints from some students of a public high school that a priest touched them inappropriately during a religious seminar in the campus.
The Cebu City schools division currently has two superintendents, pending Oliva’s transfer to Lapu-Lapu City.
Although Secretary Lapus already issued the order to replace Oliva, the latter has refused to vacate his post pending the court’s ruling on his petition.
Under Comelec rules, any senior education official in the local government unit will sit as a member of the ERB and BOC.
“But with this controversy, we have to clarify with our central office who between Dr. Oliva or Dr. Rances should sit as member,” Sarno said.
Osmeña said it does not matter whether or not Oliva will play any role in the election activities. “I don’t intend to cheat anyway, so I don’t care,” the mayor said.
