CHR Chair to Taft Mayor: respect CSC ruling

By NINFA QUIRANTE, PIA Borongan
January 26, 2011

BORONGAN, Eastern Samar  –  Appealing to Taft Mayor Francisco Adalim on Tuesday, Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairperson Loretta Ann Rosales asked that the authority of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) be respected.

Rosales flew in from the country’s capital to oversee the dialogue with Adalim and some 23 Local Government Unit (LGU) employees allegedly suspended from work unjustly.

Of the 29 employees who initially filed a case against the local chief executive, two are deceased while the other four are already overseas.

In October 2009, the CSC ruled that the employees be reinstated and paid back wages for services rendered since 2005.

According to the suspended employees, however, despite the order dated two years ago, they were still unable to report to work and perform their duties because the local chief executive already hired employees to replace them.

The case has also reached the Court of Appeals (CA), according to Adalim, and he is still waiting for the court’s decision.

To this, Rosales said that unless the CA issues a temporary restraining order, Adalim’s office has to execute what is stated in the CSC ruling: reinstate the employees immediately.

As for the employees hired as replacement, “their appointment would have been null and void the moment the CSC ruled for the reinstatement of the 29 employees,” CSC Field Officer Ariel Javier said.

In a separate interview, Rosales said that after the dialogue, her office will coordinate with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the CSC to figure out how the three offices can work together to help the Taft LGU employees.