CA freezes 5 ombud orders against Oca

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

THE Court of Appeals (CA) has issued another two-month temporary restraining order (TRO) against five dismissal orders issued by the Office of the Ombudsman against Mayor Oscar Moreno, the Gold Star Daily learned over the weekend.

There was no announcement from city hall about the new TRO until this paper pressed Moreno’s lawyers and the mayor himself for comment. Until the weekend, city hall was silent about the five separate dismissal orders issued by the ombudsman against Moreno.

One of Moreno’s lawyers, Mateo Delegencia, said he was unaware that there was a new TRO issued in favor of Moreno. But another Moreno lawyer, Dale Bryan Mordeno, confirmed that the mayor secured the new TRO from the appellate court.

Mordeno said the new TRO from the CA reached city hall on Friday night, days after the mayor received the five dismissal orders from the ombudsman.

The new 60-day TRO was issued by the CA’s special 22nd division on July 7, 2017. The six-page resolution was signed by Associate Justices Louis Acosta, Edgardo Camello and Oscar Badelles.

The ombudsman’s resolutions also carried the punishment of perpetual disqualification from public office, and the approval of a recommendation to bring Moreno to the anti-graft court in connection with the capitol’s lease of heavy equipment when he was Misamis Oriental’s governor.

Mordeno said the ombudsman’s five resolutions were identical with its previous ruling against the mayor that the CA froze with a 60-day TRO late last month.

Like the previous one, the five new ombudsman rulings were based on separate complaints filed by Antonio Nuñez, husband of former vice mayor Caesar Ian Acenas’s lawyer.

Except for the dates and the amounts involved, Nuñez’s separate complaints were about the capitol’s lease of heavy equipment, according to Mordeno. In his first complaint, the ombudsman found Mayor Moreno administratively guilty of grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to public interest, serious dishonesty and gross neglect of duty.

Mordeno said the mayor received the five dismissal orders from the ombudsman after the CA ruled to issue a 60-day TRO on the ombudsman’s first resolution on Nuñez’s complaint late last month.

Mordeno said there were at least 24 similar complaints filed against the mayor.

“Grabe kaayo… Gigutadgutad,” he said.

Mordeno said this prompted him to ask that the cases be consolidated as he sought the issuance of a new TRO from the appellate court.

In a text message, Mayor Moreno said, “We moved for the consolidation of all the petitions we have filed with the CA. After all, the issues are virtually the same. The consolidation enables a deeper understanding of the issues as well as allows expediency and better justice delivery.”