Lawyer replaced by Supreme Court joins Noy government

MANILA, Philippines - Amid questions on the appointments made by his predecessor, President Aquino has accepted a lawyer replaced by the Supreme Court (SC) into his team.

Ivan Uy, the tech-savvy lawyer named by the President to chair the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), was replaced as head of the High Court’s management information system office (MISO) some five years ago due to “inefficiency and anomalies,” an SC official told The STAR.

The source, who requested not to be named, revealed that Uy was asked by the Court to resign if he did not want to be slapped with charges, including “anomalous procurement of computers.”

“He (attorney Uy) was asked to leave the Court in December 2005 due to inefficiency and several anomalies uncovered (against him),” the source said.

Records show that Uy joined the SC as legal researcher in the early 1990s and was promoted a few years later as chief of MISO, which is in charge of computerization projects in the court and maintenance of its website and other IT projects.

When Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio became the head of the Court’s computerization committee, he introduced reforms and discovered a few questionable deals in MISO along the way, the source said.

“Actually, it was also a former official in MISO who divulged the alleged anomalies after he was sacked from office after having a conflict with Uy,” the SC official revealed.

After discreet initial investigation, Justice Carpio called Uy to his office and asked the latter to just tender his resignation before the end of December 2009, “otherwise charges would be filed against him.”

The source, however, stressed that there was no formal investigation conducted by the committee against Uy.

SC spokesman Midas Marquez begged off from commenting on the report. He said he would have to review the records of the Court before commenting on the case of Uy.

Marquez, however, recalled that in his stint as the Supreme Court’s chief information officer, Uy also led the court’s dissemination efforts to help lawyers understand the technical provisions of implementing rules and guidelines under the Philippines’ E-Commerce Law during the term of Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.

The appointment of Uy as new head of CICT came after fears that the new administration was already looking to abolish the country’s main ICT policy-making body.

Uy, prior to his new position, had headed the CIO Forum Foundation, an affiliate of a group of CIOs serving in different government agencies.

He was also a former professor of commercial law at the University of the Philippines College of Law, his alma mater.

Uy’s appointment caught many by surprise since his name was not in the shortlist of candidates for the post. The reported frontrunner then was Ignacio “Bambi” Sevilla, a classmate of Aquino at the Ateneo de Manila University and an IBM colleague of Aquino’s sister, Pinky Aquino-Abellada.

Uy’s appointment, however, was reportedly welcomed by industry stakeholders.