Friday, March 07, 2008 PAO Manila orders lawyers to explain act
THE conflict between the Regional Public Attorney and the lawyers and staff of the Cebu City Division of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) has taken an unexpected turn.
Chief Public Attorney Persida Rueda-Acosta, the Manila-based overall head of the agency, has ordered the division’s lawyers and staff to explain within 72 hours their allegedly insubordinate act of making known to the media the petition against their regional chief.
The order, dated March 5 but received only yesterday, was pursuant to a complaint that Regional Public Attorney Maria G-Ree Calinawan prepared and sent to Manila also on March 5.
While Acosta acted swiftly on Calinawan’s complaint by issuing a memorandum on the same day the complaint was received, sources pointed out that she has yet to act on the petition that the lawyers and staff prepared.
“I would still like to think that people act with the best of intentions,” said lawyer Irene Caballes in an interview yesterday. She is the designated spokesperson for the protesting lawyers and staff members.
The support for the petitioning PAO lawyers continue to flow, though. Yesterday, seven more trial court judges signed the manifesto of support prepared for the lawyers.
Memorandum
This brings to 25 of 30 the number of trial court judges supporting the division.
“We the undersigned judges of the Regional and Municipal Trial Courts of Cebu City hereby express our firm support to the Public Attorney’s Office Cebu City. We give its conscientious, courageous, hardworking and dedicated trial lawyers and staff our unwavering vote of confidence,” the manifesto reads in part.
Acosta’s two-page memorandum came with a copy of the complaint Calinawan lodged.
Calinawan cited the lawyers and staff for gross insubordination, gross misconduct and the issuance of libelous statements as contained in the petition that sought her immediate removal from office.
Respondents
She said the petition was leaked to the press and was read on-air at a local radio station.
“As there is no other person in Cebu City who has a copy of the said petition, that even the complainant was not given a copy, it is implicit that the copy of the petition given to the news reporter came from the respondents themselves,” her complaint read.
“The actuation of the herein respondent in bringing to the attention of the media their baseless and unfounded allegations clearly indicates their malicious intent to defame the complainant in the nature of character assassination,” Calinawan said.
“The resort of the herein respondents to other modes of airing their grievances, which is improper and uncalled for, is a manifestation of their gross insubordination and grave misconduct without due regard for the negative consequences the Public Attorney’s Office will suffer as a result thereof,” she added.
Disbursement
In their four-page petition, dated Feb. 18, the lawyers and staff raised several issues, among them Calinawan’s supposed method of controlling the agency’s fund disbursements.
She allegedly replaced an employee, who for years had been in charge of the function, with a confidant - with the end result of funds not reaching the district offices.
They also charged her with issuing disciplinary memoranda on the basis of unsubstantiated information.
Moreover, they alleged that Calinawan has a child with a married policeman with whom she allegedly continues to have an illicit relationship.
The petition is separate from two formal charges a lawyer and a staff member separately filed against Calinawan before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas wherein they have asked to place her under preventive suspension. (KNR)
