By CONG B. CORRALES
Associate Editor
HOURS of long and tense waiting inside the City Mayor’s Office ended with the arrival of a staff member of the Court of Appeals on Monday night. With him is a temporary restraining order, stopping the implementation of five new dismissal and disqualification orders against Mayor Oscar Moreno for 60 days.
City administrator Dionnie Gersana received the four-page temporary restraining order from the appellate court inside the mayor’s office at 7:35 pm Monday. A number of city hall employees and Moreno’s supporters, including reporters, witnessed the event.
Moreno was not in city hall at that time.
The appellate court’s Special 23rd Division order granted Moreno a two-month reprieve from the ombudsman’s dismissal orders.
The CA’s order reads in part: “…enjoining respondents, their officers and agents, and all persons acting under them from enforcing, implementing and giving effect to the Decision dated 13 March 2017 rendered by the Office of the Ombudsman in OMB-M-A-15-0520, the Decision dated 7 March… in OMB-M-A-15-0521, the Decision dated 3 May… in OMB-M-A-15-0526, the Decision dated 20 June… in OMB-M-A-15-0537, and the Decision dated 2 June… in OMB-M-A-15-0541.”
The appellate court also enjoined the Ombudsman “to resolve petitioners’ consolidated/joint motion for reconsideration with utmost dispatch.”
Moreno’s lawyer Dale Bryan Mordeno said the “delay” was because Associate Justices Edgardo Camello and Oscar Badelles were on leave.
Associate Justice Louis Acosta penned the order as attested by lawyer Melody Sherry Chan, the division clerk of court.
On Monday afternoon, the regional office of the Department of Interior and Local Government delivered the ombudsman’s orders against Moreno for gross neglect of duty and serious dishonesty.
But even though the mayor’s office was open the whole day, the DILG opted to “serve” the order to two other city hall offices — the city council though the city secretary and the office of Vice Mayor Raineir Joaquin Uy.
“Technically, wala na serve gyud ang order kay the order is addressed to Mayor Moreno,” said Mordeno.
Among those in the mayor’s office when the TRO was handcarried were former councilor and lawyer Ed Cabanlas, Gusa chairman Marlon Tabac, and City Social Welfare and Development chief Teodoro Sabuga-a.
“I’m not here as Mayor Moreno’s legal counsel. I’m here as his friend,” Cabanlas who was Moreno’s running mate in the 2013 elections.
But Cabanlas added that even if the DILG properly served the dismissal and disqualification orders, by rules of procedure, Moreno would still have 10 days upon receipt to respond.
“Dili man kana diretso dayon ipapahawa,” he said.
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