Supreme Court asked to declare illegal EO 2 revoking midnight appointments

MANILA, Philippines - A lawyer at the Office of the Solicitor General has asked the Supreme Court to declare illegal Executive Order 2 revoking the midnight appointments of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Solicitor Cheloy Garafil said EO 2 violated the Constitution by expanding the definition/interpretation of midnight appointment.

“EO 2 undermines civil service as an institution as it effectively deprives the very constitutional rights of government operations – the selfless and often underpaid workers in the civil service,” she said.

“It defies the well-established norms of justice, fair play, courtesy and professionalism.”

Solicitor General Anselmo Cadiz used EO 2 as basis in dismissing Garafil from the OSG last Aug. 6.

Garafil said her dismissal is tantamount to removal from government service in the absence of any justifiable cause and due process.

“It is wantonly illegal and plainly uncouth,” she said.

Garafil was named solicitor at the OSG last March 5 or six days before the period covered by the ban on midnight appointments started.

She took her oath last March 22, after receiving confirmation on March 19.

Garafil said EO 2 defined “midnight appointments” as those who were appointed before the election ban, but who took oath and assumed their respective offices within the period of the election ban.

The date of appointment became irrelevant as long as the oath and assumption to office were within the ban, she added.

Under EO 2, appointments made before March 11 (the cutoff for the two-month deadline before the May 11 presidential elections) shall be considered as midnight appointments if the appointee accepted or took the oath of office on or after March 11.

Garafil said she submitted her application with the OSG on Feb. 14, 2010 to gain a wider exposure in the practice of law.

She underwent a tedious screening and interview by a panel consisting of several assistant solicitors general, none of whom she personally knew.

“At the time she applied with the OSG, petitioner did not personally know the then solicitor general Alberto Agra,” Garafil’s lawyer Remigio Ancheta II said. “In fact she saw him only for the first time at her oath-taking. Petitioner does not also personally know former President Arroyo. She applied with the OSG on her own initiative and banking only on her own merits.

“What the Constitution prohibits is for the president to ‘make appointments’ two months before the next presidential elections.

“It does not prohibit the appointee to accept his or her appointment during the same period.”

Garafil is the fifth person to question EO 2 before the SC.

The first two were Director Eddie Tamondong of Subic Bay Metropolitan Board Authority (SBMA) and Assistant Secretary Jose Arturo de Castro of Department of Justice, whose petitions were consolidated by the SC.

Last Aug. 26, EO 2 was also questioned before the SC by Irma Villanueva, administrator for Visayas of the Board of Administrators of the Cooperative Development Authority, and Francisca Rosquita, commissioner of the National Commission on Indigenous People.