Source: Manila Bulletin
The Supreme Court (SC) Sunday reminded Malacañang that it cannot use the court’s recent ruling on the appointment of the next Chief Justice in justifying President Arroyo’s mass appointments and dismissals barely two months before her term ends in June.
Court Administrator and SC Spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said the March 17 decision of the High Court allowing President Arroyo to appoint the successor of Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno did not necessarily give her the authority to appoint other government officials during the period covered by the election appointments ban.
“The decision as concurred in by nine justices, and which is not yet final, only exempts appointments to the SC from the ban,” Marquez said in a text message to reporters.
Voting 9-1, with three justices inhibiting and two others saying the case was premature, the SC ruled that appointments to the High Court are not covered by the constitutional ban on midnight appointments.
Section 15, Article VII of the Constitution bars the President from making appointments starting two months before the next presidential elections and until the end of the term.
In the case of President Arroyo, the ban started last March 10 and ends on June 30.
The recent SC ruling gives President Arroyo the authority to appoint the replacement of Puno when he retires on May 17.
However, that decision is not yet final as the SC has to resolve the various motions for reconsiderations filed before it.
Marquez issued the statement amid mounting criticisms to the frenzy of appointments and surprise dismissals made by the President after March 10.
Presidential candidates Eddie Villanueva of Bangon Pilipinas and Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III earlier accused the President of committing serious injustice when she removed some officials and replaced them with favored friends and supporters and that the midnight appointments were blatant violations of the Constitution.
But Malacañang said the mass appointments were done under the ambit of the Constitution.
Presidential Spokesperson Ricardo Saludo explained that because of the President’s compliance with the March 10 deadline, all appointments were squeezed in and resulted in mass designations.
Aquino vows to void midnight appointments
However, Liberal Party standard-bearer Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III has vowed that once he is elected he would void the midnight appointments made by President Arroyo as he pointed out that they were blatant violations of the Constitution.
Aquino cited Article VII, Section 14 of the Constitution which allows an elected president to revoke questionable or temporary appointments by his predecessor.
“It’s supposed to be prohibited but the (Supreme Court) allowed it in the case of the Chief justice.
Now we have appointments left and right. Based on the spirit of the law on prohibition, it’s difficult to understand why she can do this,” Aquino told reporters in Valenzuela during the start of the local campaign period.
Aquino pointed out that President Arroyo’s disregard for the constitutional ban on midnight appointments was obviously a result of the Supreme Court decision allowing her to appoint the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Arroyo earlier named her classmate and aerobics instructor Cynthia Carreon as head of the Tourism Promotions Board and Mark Lapid as chief operating officer of the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority.
A new law, the Tourism Act of 2009, created the two agencies and gave the appointees security of tenure.
Carreon and Lapid have a fixed term of six years, which means they cannot be removed by President Arroyo’s successor unless he forces them to resign.
Lapid, son of administration Sen. Lito Lapid, was head of the defunct Philippine Tourism Authority.
The two agencies will have hundreds of millions in internally generated funds, including travel tax receipts, which they can keep and dispense without much intervention from Malacañang.
President Arroyo also appointed former Manila International Airport Authority general manager Alfonso Cusi as head of another newly created agency, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP).
Cusi’s new agency will have billions in funds for new airports and other airport-related projects like runway and terminal expansion or rehabilitation.
De Venecia decries Palace appointments
Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) senatorial aspirant Joey de Venecia III also decried the midnight appointments.
The PMP stalwart was referring to reports of President Arroyo naming an ambassador and several officials of government agencies, and replacing the entire boards of two cultural institutions with barely three months left in her term and despite the constitutional ban on midnight appointments.
“Much like her stubborn plan to appoint a midnight Chief Justice, Mrs. Arroyo appears intent on implanting Arroyo loyalists in sensitive offices so they can be at her beck and call well after she leaves Malacañang on June 30, 2010,” de Venecia said.
Mrs. Arroyo reportedly replaced the entire boards as well as the heads of the National Museum and the National Historical Institute (NHI), both agencies under the Office of the President, with most of them not even knowing they had been replaced.
The President also relieved the current Philippine ambassador to Germany Delia Domingo-Albert, without any warning.
Ambassador Domingo-Albert only learned about it when she went to Malacañang last Friday to receive an award from a women’s business group.
De Venecia said, “The wholesale action by the exiting President is much like stuffing ballot boxes with fake votes or leaving Trojan horses in key public institutions on the event of the election of a properly-mandated President.”
“The times call for Mrs. Arroyo to display statesmanship and utmost fairness to those in public service. She is tragically doing the opposite,” the opposition senatorial candidate said. (With a report from Roy Mabasa)
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