IBP elects new national executive vice president

UPDATED 1:10 p.m - The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), an association of lawyers, elected on Monday Roan Libarios as its new national executive vice president. The special elections was held in compliance with the Supreme Court's recent order resolving the IBP's leadership row. Libarios won the post, which has been vacant since May 2009, in a unanimous vote. "All the IBP governors voted for me. They unified," Libarios said in a phone interview with GMANews.TV. Libarios is currently the IBP's governor of Eastern Mindanao. He was seen in public recently when he became part of the five-member Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) that looked into the August 23, 2010 hostage tragedy in Manila, where eight Hong Kong hostages were killed. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima chaired the IIRC. Libarios earned his law degree at the University of the Philippines, where he was editor-in-chief of the state university's publication, the Philippine Collegian, from 1982 to 1983. He also served as Agusan del Norte vice governor in 1992. Six years later, he was elected the province's representative for the second district. During his stint at the House of Representatives, he was part of the 11-member prosecution panel that handled the impeachment proceedings against then President Joseph Estrada, who was forced to step down from his post in January 2001 at the height of a massive anti-corruption street protest along EDSA, Quezon City. Last week, the SC upheld with a vote of 8-2 the election of lawyers Manuel Maramba, Erwin Fortunato and Nasser Marohomsalic as IBP governors of the Greater Manila Region, the Western Visayas Region and the Western Mindanao Region, respectively. The court also ordered the holding of a special polls to elect the association's national executive vice president for 2009 to 2011, with Maramba, Fortunato and Marohomsalic being allowed to vote. Under the IBP rules, the association's EVP assumes the presidency at the end of his term. This means that Libarios will replace incumbent IBP officer-in-charge Santiago Kapunan, a former Supreme Court justice, in June 30 next year. He will then be the IBP's national president for a full term of two years. Leadership controversy The controversy erupted when lawyer Elpidio Soriano protested the election of Maramba, who won by a margin of one vote against Soriano as governor of the Greater Manila Region. Soriano alleged that the first election in April 2009 should be declared void because non-delegates voted at that time. Soriano subsequently won the special election in May 2009, which according to the SC had the blessing of then EVP and supposedly the incoming IBP president Rogelio Vinluan. The SC, however, later nullified the special election. According to the SC, Maramba was the legitimate winner and that the special election had not been called for or presided by the outgoing regional governor. For facilitating the special election, Vinluan and his group were cited by the SC for grave professional misconduct and barred from running as national officers of the IBP in subsequent elections. Vinluan's group included Abelardo Estrada, Bonifacio Barandon Jr., Evergisto Escalon and Raymund Mercado, The SC later declared Vinluan unfit to hold the position of the EVP and was unable to succeed as IBP president from 2009 to 2011. – VVP, GMANews.TV