SC tells Palace to comment on petitions challenging Aquino EOs

(Updated 4:09 p.m.) The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Office of the President to comment on the two separate petitions questioning the legality of President Benigno Aquino III's two executive orders. Court adminstrator and spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said Malacañang has 10 days to answer the petitions of Justice assistant secretary Jose Arturo de Castro JD and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) director Eddie Tamondong. "Respondent [is] being given non-extendable period of 10 days to comment," Marquez said at a news briefing. Named respondent in the De Castro and Tomondong suits was the Office of the President, represented by Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. De Castro is seeking to nullify Executive Order No. 2, which revokes former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's so-called midnight appointments; and Executive Order No. 3, which revokes Arroyo's EO No. 883 that made lawyers "occupying legal positions in the government executive service who have obtained graduate degrees in law and successfully passed their bar examinations" with the rank of Career Executive Service Officer III. Tamondong, on the other hand, is only seeking to nullify EO No. 2. On Tuesday, Marquez said that after the Office of the President files its comments, the court will decide whether it will issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) to bar the implementation of EO No. 2 and No. 3, or a status quo ante order which restores the appointments before the executive orders were enforced. Palace ready to defend EO 2 At a press briefing in Malacañang, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the government's legal team is prepared to answer the Supreme Court and defend the constitutionality of EO No. 2. "Our lawyers are studying the issues. We believe the law is sound, the EO is sound and it will stand constitutional question before the Supreme Court," Lacierda said. Lacierda said the Palace is also looking into the employment status of De Castro. He said Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said she was not informed of De Castro's decision to take the issue to the Supreme Court. Not midnight appointees? On Monday, De Castro and Tamondong said the Palace erred in listing them as Arroyo's midnight appointees. De Castro insisted his re-appointment as Justice undersecretary on March 1, 2010 is not a midnight appointment because it did not fall within the constitutional ban from March 11 to June 30 this year, or sixty days before the elections until the time outgoing President Arroyo bows out of office. He said EO No. 2 violates Section 1, Article III and Section 2b, Article IX of the 1987 Constitution, respectively, involving "deprivation of persons of their property rights without just cause and compliance with the cardinal requirement of due process" and "deprivation of civil service employees of security of tenure and summarily dismissing them without just cause and without compliance with the cardinal requirements of due process." EO NO. 2, De Castro said, also violated Section 15, Article VII because it "even covers appointments made by officials other than the President and issued within the two month period preceding the May 10, 2010 elections but outside the 45-day period mandated under section 261 of the Omnibus Election Code." Tamondong, who was also reappointed SBMA chair last March 1, said he should not be included in the list of midnight appointments because the ban on such appointments took effect March 11. He added that President Aquino carried out "a twin policy of hate and vindictiveness" toward Mrs. Arroyo. — with Jam Sisante/RSJ, KBK, GMANews.TV