Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Taguig Mayor Laarni “Lani” Cayetano was charged by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales on Thursday (August 6) for padlocking the session hall and preventing members of the Sangguniang Panglungsod to hold regular sessions back in 2010.
Officer-in-Charge City Administrator Jose Montales was also charged by the Office of the Ombudsman.
Cayetano and Montales were both charged in violation of Article 143 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC).
Article 143 of the RPC penalizes persons who, by force or fraud, prevent or tend to prevent the meetings of local legislative bodies.
The case stemmed from the eviction of the Sangguniang Panglungsod (SP) from its venue and its transfer to a small room at the city auditorium in August 2010.
The Ombudsman said the SP was constrained to hold its proceedings on the staircase of the city hall on its maiden session and in various venues inside and outside the city hall for the next 14 sessions.
The SP members underscored that the padlocking of the session hall was an act of hostility, premeditated, and executed with undue haste, affording no prior consultation and no prior notice.
Carpio Morales also junked Cayetano’s explanation that the move was part of the city’s reengineering and reorganizational plan.
The Ombudsman also said that respondents failed to comply with Section 45(b), Article I, Chapter III of the Local Government Code which requires that the power bestowed upon the local chief executive to assign and allocate office spaces must be exercised for the purpose of promoting efficient and economical governance, for “the exercise of any power, whether express or implied, must be rational.”
“The exercise necessarily precludes any arbitrariness or abuse,” Carpio Morales said.
