CESB execs axed for self-promotion

EDITORIAL

The Supreme Court has upheld the administrative penalty imposed on three former members of the Career Executive Service Board for signing a resolution for their own promotion.

Laymen have a term for what these CESB officials did – kapal muks.

In a nine-page decision released last May 3, the SC’s Second Division affirmed the 2015 ruling of the Court of Appeals (CA) that upheld the three-month suspension order against then CESB members Proceso Domingo, Angelito Twaño and Susan Solo as well as the revocation of their Career Executive Service Officer (CESO) ranks by the Office of the President (OP) in 2013.

The SC, in the ruling penned by Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, dismissed for lack of merit the petition of the three former CESB officials seeking the reversal of the CA ruling.

The High Court agreed with the CA that the OP was correct in finding the petitioners guilty of simple negligence for signing CESB resolutions that included their names and approved promotion of their respective CESO ranks.

Records showed the petitioners were appointed to the CESB for a six-year term in January 2010 by then president and now Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Their CESO rank promotions were signed and approved by Arroyo in June 2010, but were not recognized by then incoming president Benigno Aquino III, who later revoked the promotions.