IBP to hold special election in compliance with Supreme Court order

MANILA, Philippines – The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) is expected to hold on Monday a special election for its contested top post following the controversial special poll held in May last year, the Supreme Court (SC) announced yesterday.

Court Administrator and spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said the special poll would be officiated by either the executive judge or vice executive judge of the regional trial court in Pasig City, where IBP holds its national office.

Marquez explained that the IBP election would be held in compliance with the order of the High Court, which also resolved the controversy in the leadership of the country’s premier association of lawyers through a ruling released last week.

“The IBP was given 10 days from receipt of notice to hold the special election. They have set the election on Dec. 27, Monday, even if it is a holiday,” he said.

The special poll would determine the national executive vice president of the IBP, which under its charter automatically becomes the national president for the next succeeding full term of two years.

Marquez said the winner in the election would take the place of retired High Court Justice Santiago Kapunan, who had been designated by the Court as officer-in-charge of the organization until June 30 next year.

The High Tribunal last week resolved the leadership vacuum in IBP and barred lawyer Rogelio Vinluan from assuming its presidency.

Voting 8-2 with five justices inhibiting, the SC ruled that Vinluan and four other officers of the organization were guilty of grave professional misconduct during the hotly contested 2009 IBP elections.

A senior partner of the prestigious ACCRA law office, Vinluan was a former executive vice president of IBP. He was supposed to assume the presidency had he not been involved in the controversy.

The SC also disqualified Vinluan, Aberlado Estrada, Bonifacio Barandon Jr., Evergisto Esalon and Raymund Mercado from seeking any national position in the IBP in subsequent elections.

The same ruling penned by Chief Justice Renato Corona also upheld the election of Manuel Maramba, Erwin Fortunato and Nasser Marohomsalic as governors for Metro Manila, Western Visayas and Western Mindanao, respectively.

The Court adopted the findings of a special investigating committee that Vinluan illegally intervened in the 2009 special elections to have his Sigma Rho fraternity brother, Elpidio Soriano, elected “by hook or by crook” despite Soriano having lost to Maramba during the regular election.

It noted that Soriano had already been disqualified from running for the 2009-2011 term for violating the so-called rotation rule.

With this ruling, Maramba, Fortunato and Marohomsalic would be allowed to cast votes as IBP governors in the special election.