Dismissed Makati City Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay Jr. may have succeeded in stopping the first suspension order imposed by the Office of the Ombudsman, but his legal victory is short-lived as he can no longer invoke the condonation doctrine in questioning the dismissal order issued by the anti-graft body against him last month over the Makati City Hall building 2 project.
Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te made the statement on Wednesday even as the Court released its promulgated decision abandoning the jurisprudence on condonation that extinguishes the administrative liabilities of reelected officials for acts committed in their previous terms.
Te admitted reports that the application of the abandonment would be prospective in effect, as specifically mandated in the dispositive portion of the ruling written by Associate Justice Estela Perlas– Bernabe.
“The incident that was raised to the court is very specific. That incident [injunction order of the Court of Appeals on the suspension order] is very specific. As far as that incident is concerned, it is not covered by the abandonment,” Te said in a media briefing.
But the SC official stressed that abandonment of the doctrine, as stated in the ruling, would apply in future cases, including possible actions of Binay in questioning his dismissal from government service.
When asked if Binay could invoke the doctrine against his dismissal, which arose from the same charges related to the Makati parking building, Te expressed the belief that the sacked Makati City mayor no longer could.
In its decision, the SC ruled that the condonation doctrine, which became part of Philippine jurisprudence in 1959 upon ruling also of the high court, should be abandoned for lack of basis in the 1987 Philippine Constitution and law.
“As can be seen from this discourse, it was a doctrine adopted from one class of US rulings way back in 1959 and thus, out of touch from—and now rendered obsolete by—the current legal regime,” the decision stated.
The SC said the doctrine is “bereft of legal basis” and that none of the provisions under the Local Government Code on the discipline of public officers stated that the administrative liability of a public official is extinguished by the fact of reelection.
“Election is not a mode of condoning an administrative offense, and there is simply no constitutional or statutory basis in our jurisdiction to support the notion that an official elected for a different term is fully absolved of any administrative liability arising from an offense done during a prior term,” read the decision.
However, the SC pointed out that the Court of Appeals was correct in applying the doctrine in stopping the Ombudsman’s suspension order against Binay since it was still valid then.
“For this reason, the Court of Appeals’ reliance on the cases invoking the condonation doctrine did not constitute grave abuse of discretion,” the Court ruled.
“By merely following settled precedents on the condonation doctrine, which at that time, unwittingly remained ‘good law,’ it cannot be concluded that the CA committed a grave abuse of discretion base don its legal attribution above. Accordingly, the writ of preliminary injunction against the Ombudsman’s preventive suspension order was correctly issued,” the SC said.
With this ruling, the SC directed the appellate court to already resolve the petition of Binay questioning Ombudsman’s suspension order for being moot due to his dismissal last month as supervening event.
“Considering that the Ombudsman, on October 9, 2015, had already found Binay Jr. administratively liable and imposed upon him the penalty of dismissal, which carries the accessory penalty of perpetual disqualification from holding public office, for the present administrative charges against him, the CA petition ought to be dismissed on the ground of mootness,” read the ruling.
As already reported, the SC struck down paragraph 2 of Section 14 of Republic Act No. 6770 or the Ombudsman Act of 1989, which is often invoked by the Ombudsman in assailing CA rulings against its orders on administrative cases.
The SC deemed as “vague” Section 14, Par. 2 of RA 6770, which prevents a court, apart from the SC, from hearing any appeal or application for remedy against the decision or findings of the Ombudsman on pure question of law.
It stressed the portion of the law was vague for two reasons: It is unclear what the phrase “application for remedy” or the word “findings” refer to; and it does not specify what procedural remedy is solely allowable to the SC except that it may be taken only on a question of law.
The tribunal also deemed as “ineffective” paragraph 1 of the provision, which prohibits any court, apart from the SC, from issuing a writ of injunction to delay an investigation being conducted by the Office of the Ombudsman.
In its decision, the SC said the provision “encroached on the SC’s constitutional rule-making authority, specifically in defining the scope of injunctions and restraint orders as provisional and ancillary to a court’s subject matter jurisdiction and as inherent in a court.”
The SC said Congress violated the separation of powers when it eliminated a provisional remedy included in the Court’s rules by limiting the power of all courts, except the SC, to issue injunctions over Ombudsman probes.