The Supreme Court (SC) has required the Office of the Ombudsman (OMB) to answer the petition of then Mexico, Pampanga mayor Teddy C. Tumang who challenged his dismissal as the town’s chief executive in 2022. 

In a resolution issued by its second division and released last March 5, the SC deferred action on Tumang’s plea for temporary restraining order (TRO) or preliminary injunction until the OMB’s comment is filed.

The OMB was given a non-extendible period of 10 days to file it comment upon receipt of the SC resolution. 

In an urgent motion filed last Feb. 24, Tumang told the SC he should be reinstated on the ground of inordinate delay in the handling of the cases against him and based on the doctrine of condonation.

The motion of Tumang and three other former municipal officials – former administrative officer Luz C. Bondoc, accountant Perlita T. Lagman, and engineer Jesus S. Punzalan – was filed through their lawyers led by Romulo B. Macalintal.

They were ordered dismissed by the OMB for violation of Republic Act No. 9184, the Government Procurement Reform Act, in the purchase of base course and other construction materials in 2008 without public bidding.

They appealed their dismissal before the CA which affirmed the OMB order in a decision dated July 18, 2024.  They elevated the case to the SC.

In their motion, Tumang and his group told the SC that the case against them involved transactions that happened in 2008 but the administrative cases were filed about 10 years thereafter or in 2018 and the decision was issued by the OMB in 2022 after a lapse of four years.

In the case of Tumang, he told the SC that the OMB had a “flip flopping application of the condonation doctrine.”

Before its abandonment in April 12, 2016, the condonation doctrine “effectively operated as a condonation of past administrative misconduct of local chief executives and prevented his/her removal from office once reelected to the same post.” 

Tumang said he was reelected town mayor in 2010 and, thus, the condonation doctrine should apply in his case. 

He and his three co-petitioners told the SC that the OMB committed “forum shopping and multiplicity of suits deliberately caused by the piecemeal filing of complaints involving similar incidents leading to the issuance of conflicting decisions.”

“With only four months remaining to my term of office which will end on June 30, 2025, I moved for my reinstatement so as not to defeat the will of the electorate who overwhelmingly elected me in the 2022 elections and prevent a mere pyrrhic victory as my term of office is about to expire,” Tumang also told the SC.