A group led by former Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. will not allow President Benigno Aquino 3rd to appoint officers-in-charge (OIC) of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
(ARMM) even if the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of Republic Act (RA) 10153, which also synchronizes the polls in the region with those scheduled for 2013.
Pimentel is the lead counsel of the group that filed a motion for reconsideration on Thursday before the High Tribunal seeking to allow ARMM incumbent officials to continue their stay in office in a hold-over capacity until 2013.
Besides the former senatorl, the group is composed of Almarim Centi Tillah, Datu Casan Conding and the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).
It said that the High Tribunal ignored not only the Local Government Code but also the Organic Act creating the ARMM in deciding the case.
Petitioners maintained that vesting the President with power to appoint OIC gives an unwarranted privilege to those who cannot win the mandate of the ARMM electorate to hold public office.
“The general rule is that the filling up of vacant elective local government positions is done by succession where the law defines who the successors are,” the petitioners said.
“If vacancies in elective positions in the LGUs [local government units] are filled up mainly by election or succession by other elective officials, perhaps, it stands to reason that vacancies in the ARMM should likewise be filled up in the same manner,” they added.
The petitioners said that calling for synchronized ARMM elections negates the concept of a republican democracy, where those who govern in different levels of government must be elected by the people.
Under Republic Act 10153, the President is empowered to appoint OIC in the Muslim region.
But the petitioners acknowledged that holding elections in the ARMM may now be rather difficult to implement, so the only option left is for the incumbent elective officials in the region to continue holding office until the next elections in 2013 as envisioned in Republic Act 10153.
