Ipong will serve as acting officer until President Arroyo appoints a permanent replacement. Ipong will likewise head the agency’s Witness Protection and Benefits Program.
The appointment ended talks that controversial Cebu City Assistant Prosecutor Mary Ann Castro would be named to the post.
But sources say that this doesn’t mean Castro, who has returned to the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor albeit still partially detailed to the Bureau of Immigration office in Iloilo, is out of the picture.
Arellano’s departure leaves a lawful next-in-line in the person of Assistant State Prosecutor Vicente Mañalac. Mañalac, like Castro, is detailed with the BI.
Allowance
At Cebu City Hall, Mayor Tomas Osmeña said any move to block the appointment of Castro will get his support.
Despite his apparent dislike for Castro, Osmeña approved the release of her P5,000 monthly allowance from the City Government, but it will not be made retroactive.
The allowance will be given starting this month, but he warned that it should not be given to charity, which was what Castro announced earlier.
Charity
“She’s going to get it but it’s not retroactive, no way. And I heard she wants to donate it to charity, that’s why I’m thinking of canceling it because it’s an insult to the City Government if we give you allowance and you’ll give it to charity,” Osmeña said yesterday.
Castro stopped getting her allowance in April 2005 reportedly after two businessmen approached the mayor and handed a copy of a complaint they had lodged against Castro. The complaint stemmed from a traffic violation that Castro allegedly committed sometime in 2005 by blocking the entrance to the businessmen’s shop.
At City Hall, the mayor said he will leave it to the City Council to speak up against Castro’s application for regional state prosecutor.
“I think if there is any move, it should come from the council and I certainly will not object to it. A dubious character in that office will very clearly create a lack of confidence of the public if such appointment is made, as if there’s no one else,” Osmeña said.
In a phone interview yesterday, Councilor Edgardo Labella said he’d rather not pass a resolution regarding the matter.
Castro’s application is better left to the concerned authorities to evaluate and resolve, he said.
The Office of the Regional State Prosecutor is an offshoot to Presidential Decree (PD) 1275.
The law regionalizes the prosecution service in line with the government policy of decentralization.
PD 1275 details the agency’s functions and includes the implementation of all policies, plans, programs, memoranda, orders, circulars and rules and regulations of the Department of Justice relative to the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases in the region.
The officer has administrative supervision over all provincial and city fiscals and other prosecuting officers of provinces and cities comprised within his region.
The Regional State Prosecutor is the highest-ranking government prosecutor in the region and has the authority to cause the transfer of “subordinate personnel” within the jurisdiction of the regional office.
He or she also has the authority to investigate administrative complaints against other prosecutors assigned to the region.
Findings are subject to the approval of the Secretary of Justice, though. (KNR/LCR)
