Administrative Order No. 87




MALACAÑAN PALACE MANILA BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES [ ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER NO. 87, May 19, 1949 ] REQUIRING MAYOR IÑAKI LARRAZABAL OF ORMOC CITY TO RESIGN FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY Mayor Iñaki Larrazabal of Ormoc City is charged, among other things, with being arbitrary and oppressive and with gross misconduct in office in that he ordered one Pelagio P. Codilla to be placed in jail when he was in the office of the City Chief of Police waiting for the preparation of his bail bond and that he assaulted right in his office one Manuel Arradaza. The record shows that on May 27, 1948, one Pelagio P. Codilla was arrested as a result of a criminal case for libel filed against him by the respondent. At the request of Codilla’s lawyer, the Chief of Police agreed to allow Codilla just to stay in his office and there wait for his bail bond. However, when the respondent saw Codilla in the office of the Chief of Police, he ordered the latter to place Codilla in jail notwitstanding the vigorious protest of Codilla that he was not a notorious criminal and that therefore he was not going to escape. In having thus ordered the confinement of Codilla in jail instead of just allowing him to stay in the office of the Chief of Police, the respondent committed an abuse of official discretion, especially so if it is considered that he himself was the complainant in the criminal case. With respect to the charge of gross misconduct in office, it appears that in the morning of May 18, 1948, one Saturnina Caacoy went to his office and reported that Manuel Arradaza, a labor inspector of the “Leyte Labor Union,” by force and intimidation, prevented her corn from being loaded by her houseboys. Acting on this report, the respondent sent policemen to call for Arradaza and there treacherously boxed him. The respondent admits having laid his hand on Manuel Arradaza but claims that he did so in view of the latter’s challenging and discourteous attitude. There can be no justification for such act. What the respondent should have done was to order a policeman to take Arradaza out of his office and thereafter to direct the filing in court of such criminal action as may be warranted against Arradaza for his actuations in connection with the loading of the corn in question. In assaulting Arradaza, the respondent not only failed to perform his sworn duty to uphold the majesty of the law but took the law itself into his own hands, thereby bringing discredit and disrepute upon the public service. In view of all the foregoing, I find that the respondent is temperamentally unfit and has outlived his usefulness as a city executive. Wherefore, he is hereby required to resign immediately from office as Mayor of Ormoc City. If he fails to do so, he is hereby removed from office for cause.ᇈWᑭHIL Done in the City of Manila, this 19th day of May, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, and of the Independence of the Philippines, the third. (Sgd.) ELPIDIO QUIRINO President of the Philippines By the President: (Sgd.) TEODORO EVANGELISTA Executive Secretary The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation