“Why won’t they release the benefits?”
On December 2, 2021, outgoing Malabon City Mayor Antolin Oreta III and his wife Melissa, of the well-entrenched Oreta political dynasty in the city, were sued in court. The case was filed by Atty. Ramon M. Maronilla, the President of the City of Malabon University (CMU) from July 2008 to December 2019.
Maronilla was a member of the Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines (UP) from 2015 to 2018, and held the post of President of the UP Alumni Association during the same period. He is a veteran litigation lawyer and resides in the City of San Juan, in Metropolitan Manila. Maronilla was also the President of Club Filipino during the centennial of Philippine independence.
Maronilla’s appointment as CMU President was duly approved and repeatedly renewed by the Board of Regents of the CMU since 2008. On January 30, 2018, the Board of Regents concurred in the formal investiture of Maronilla as the fourth president of the CMU.
As CMU President, Maronilla introduced substantial changes in the management of the university that made the institution more cost efficient, and more accessible to the marginalized families of Malabon. Maronilla also spearheaded CMU’s move to get recognized by the Commission on Higher Education.
The charter of the CMU is Malabon City Ordinance No. 06-2003 enacted by the city council. It operates under the auspices of the city government of Malabon.
Section 11 of the CMU charter states that the CMU President is entitled to the same emoluments enjoyed by a member of the city council. Under the law, members of the city council of Malabon City are entitled to salaries and leave credits. In addition, Resolution No. 991986 (series of 1999) issued by the Civil Service Commission categorically states that a city councilor is entitled to accumulated leave credits.
Thus, when Maronilla retired from the CMU on December 15, 2019, he expected the CMU to pay him his corresponding unused and accumulated leave credits. As of December 2021, that amount is estimated at P1.3-million pesos.
Because he had planned on using that sum for his health maintenance as a senior citizen, Maronilla sent several letters to Malabon city officials for the release of the monetary equivalent of his unused accumulated leave credits as CMU President for more than a decade. He also invited the attention of Malabon City Mayor Antolin Oreta III to the matter.
Unfortunately for Maronilla, Oreta and several officials at the Malabon City Hall refused to pay him his due. They offered the lame excuse that city hall never issued a full-time appointment to Maronilla, and that the denial of his claim for benefits is in accord with guidelines issued by the Civil Service Commission.
Among the Malabon City officials who rejected Maronilla’s request for payment include Maria Caridad Soco (the city’s human resources officer); Atty. Rosalyn de Silva (assistant city legal officer); Jayson San Juan (also of the human resources office); and Attys. Ryan Carlo Escalada and Hermilia Campos-Banayat (legal officers of the city). As city mayor, Oreta is aware of what his minions at city hall did to Maronilla.
According to Maronilla, since his entitlement to his unused accumulated leave credits is clearly recognized under the CMU charter, it is the ministerial duty of CMU and the city government of Malabon to release those benefits to him. Being a ministerial duty, Maronilla stressed that officials of the CMU and the city government can be compelled by a court, through a writ of mandamus, to comply with that ministerial duty.
Eventually, Maronilla filed a petition for mandamus against the city government of Malabon, represented by Mayor Oreta, and the CMU, represented by its new President, Oreta’s wife Melissa Sison-Oreta. The petition was filed with the Regional Trial Court of San Juan City, Metropolitan Manila, and docketed as SCA Case No. 4231-SJ.
Maronilla is also considering filing disbarment cases against Escalada and Campos-Banayat.
All that notwithstanding, I believe there are other questions that ought to be asked about the Oreta political dynasty in the City of Malabon.
Why is Melissa Sison-Oreta, the wife of the city mayor of Malabon, the incumbent president of CMU in the first place? Since the CMU operates under the city government headed by her husband, delicadeza demands that she should not have accepted her appointment as CMU president.
Is Melissa Sison-Oreta so desperate for a job and is unable to find employment in the private sector? Her online curriculum vitae states that she speaks a little French.
Malabon’s city council has two Oretas: Paolo D. Oreta and Jose Lorenzo Oreta. Doesn’t that smack of a political dynasty which the Constitution frowns on?
