Wednesday, February 21, 2007
PB to decide on vice guv's fate Tuesday
By Lory Ann B. Bilbao
THE Provincial Board will resolve on Tuesday whether or not Vice Governor Roberto Armada will be expelled.
The committees on rules and ethics and on good government held a hearing Monday regarding the month-long absence of Armada. This constitutes four absences during the regular session held every Tuesday.
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Armada was marked absent during the sessions on January 23 and 30 and February 6 and 13.
Last February 2, Armada sent a letter asking for consideration for his absences, which he has committed because of being in a state of legal quandary.
Board Members Domingo Oso Jr. and Rodolfo Cabado, among other members of the committees, were taking one option from the two options that they have.
The first is if they'd consider the absences and therefore accept the alibi of Armada. Or, declaring the position of vice governor permanently vacant, following the absence of the one who was duly elected to the post.
Armada's counsel, Maria Rita Basco-Sarabia, attended Monday the hearing of the committees and asked that Board Members Tupas, Oso, and Cecilia Capadosa inhibit themselves in the conduct of inquiry on her client's absences.
Vested interest might prevail, she expressed.
But, Oso said, the three of them "decided that they won't inhibit themselves" as the issue is too personal.
Oso, who was also the chairman of the committee that probed the alleged ghost job hires of Armada, said he has been impartial even during the earlier investigation on the vice governor.
Evidence to prove the allegations of ghost job hires were gathered, said Oso, but he has tried not to dwell on it hoping that the fault would be corrected.
"If we would inhibit ourselves, who are given the responsibility to discipline a member of the board, who will decide in favor of the board?" he said.
Oso said that disciplining a member who violates the board's internal rules is provided by the same rules.
The authority to inquire the absence of Armada and the power to recommend the imposition of proper sanction was given to the same committees by the majority members, after Board Member Niel Tupas Jr. in his privilege speech last week asked that the board act on the absences of its member.
Armada was sworn in by the Department of Interior and Local Government as governor last January 15, when the same body carried the copy of the dismissal of Governor Niel Tupas Sr.
But on January 19, the same agency ordered Armada to reassume the vice governor's post, as it recognized the temporary restraining order, which Tupas secured from the Court of Appeals on the day of the assault, January 17.
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Cebu. (February 20, 2007 issue)
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