City legal officer: Preventive suspension bars officials from duties
MAJORITY BLOC QUESTIONS LIMITATIONS
DAGUPAN City Legal Officer Aurora Valle maintains that in all cases of preventive suspension, the suspended official is barred from performing the functions of his or her office and does not receive salary although not vacating and losing the title to the office.
In a letter to the Dagupan Sangguniang Panlungsod dated March 10, 2025, Valle clarified the issue when she was asked by the council to give her insight into the case Aldovino v. COMELEC, which was decided en banc by the Supreme Court on December 23, 2009.
The case is being cited by the three members of the majority in the chamber who were placed under a 60-day preventive suspension last year in their assertion that during the suspension period, they continued to hold office and, therefore, would have still been counted in the determination of a quorum.
The seven-member majority is questioning the validity of resolutions passed and other actions taken by the council when the minority was in control during the suspension period.
The Aldovino v. COMELEC case was filed by Simon Aldomino Jr., Danilo Faller and Ferdinand Talabong as petitioners against the poll body and Wilfredo Asilo, who was an elected councilor of Lucena City in Quezon province who was preventively suspended by the Sandiganbayan for 90 days about a criminal case he was then facing.
The Supreme Court, however, subsequently lifted the Sandiganbayan’s suspension order, hence he resumed performing the functions of his office and finished his term.
This means, according to Valle, that under a preventive suspension, the official continues to stay in office although he is barred from exercising the functions and prerogatives of the office within the suspension period. (Leonardo Micua)
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