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Friday, March 29, 2024

High court refuses to meddle in Makati

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THE Supreme Court did not act on the Ombudsman’s petition to stop the Court of Appeals from lifting the six-month suspension it imposed on Makati City Mayor Junjun Binay Jr. in connection with the allegedly overpriced Makati City Hall Building II.

The high court instead ordered the appellate court’s Sixth Division and Binay to comment on the Ombudsman’s petition not later than April 6, the start of the Court’s summer session in Baguio City, high court spokesman Theodore Te told reporters.

The Court also ordered the Ombudsman, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II and several others to comment on the contempt of court raps that Binay filed against them for refusing to heed the Court of Appeals’ order stopping the mayor’s suspension.

In the Senate, meanwhile, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said the high court should quickly resolve the case between Binay and Vice Mayor Kid Peña, who was designated by the Interior Department as acting mayor following Binay’s suspension by the Ombudsman.

She said the immediate issue now was which official the city hall employees would be following.

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She said there were many reasons why the two wanted to be mayor, and the first was money.

Te announced the high court’s decision after Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales asked the high court to stop the CA’s Sixth Division from conducting proceedings in connection with Binay’s plea against his suspension.

Morales argued that the CA’s issuance of a TRO on the suspension order it issued against Binay had undermined the Ombudsman’s independence. She said the Office of the Ombudsman was an independent body created by the 1987 Constitution to curb corruption and abuse in the government, and it was “deliberately placed outside the ambit of the political branches of government to free it from the insidious tentacles of politics.”

The Ombudsman also argued that Binay’s continued access to documents and witnesses at the Makati City Hall was compromising and endangering the integrity of the pending administrative cases against him.    With Macon Ramos-Araneta

 

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