COMELEC: Degamo may take office as governor on July 1

CEBU, Philippines - The Comelec-Negros Oriental office yesterday said Governor Roel Ragay Degamo, despite the Ombudsman’s dismissal order, may assume the governorship on July 1, but without prejudice to rulings made by other agencies such as Ombudsman and the Department of Interior and Local Government.

Provincial election officer Edi Aba said he respected the decision of the Ombudsman as an independent body, but as far as the Comelec is concerned, Degamo may sit as governor  noontime on June 30.

Aba said Degamo was voted by an overwhelming majority of 321,141 votes, was proclaimed by the Comelec and has taken his oath of office so that the next process is for him to assume the position he has applied for in the recent elections.

That is for the Comelec, said Aba, adding that Comelec however will not intervene on rulings by the Ombudsman, which is not within its jurisdiction.

This development came, while assistant provincial administrator Froilan Joseph Pinili said Degamo was still hoping that the Court of Appeals will issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the governor’s dismissal, based on the theory that the same was granted to provincial accountant Teodorico Reyes and provincial treasurer Danilo Mendez.

Reyes and Mendez, co-respondents of Degamo in the malversation of public documents and grave misconduct cases filed by a taxpayer, were granted with a TRO over the Ombudsman dismissal order. Pinili firmly believed a TRO is coming to Degamo because it involved the same parties and same facts of the case.

Provincial Board Member Rommel Erames however said that what has been done cannot anymore be undone, referring to the execution of the dismissal order on June 17, against Degamo, and the immediate assumption of reelected Vice Governor Edward Mark Macias as the new governor.

Pinili countered that it was only the theory of the lawyer (Erames), but its up for the CA to decide on it, contending that Degamo’s camp has applied for the socalled status quo ante, or a situation prior to all the situations that happened the past days.

Legally speaking, we believe our case is really meritorious and we have raised  before the CA several issues and errors regarding the decision of the Ombudsman, said Pinili.   (FREEMAN)