BONTOC, Mountain Province – The management of the State-run Mountain Province State Polytechnic College (MPSPC) stated that it will be the members of the Board of Trustees who will decide the fate of the three dismissed workers who were earlier dismissed for grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service following the unilateral decision of the collegial body to reinstate them without the expressed consent of the Supreme Court (SC).
MPSPC president Dr. Rexton Chakas said that he will immediately refer the matter to Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Commissioner Lilian delas Llagas who is the Commissioner-in-Charge of state universities and colleges (SUCs) for her to decide on whether or not to remand the same to the board that decided to reinstate the dismissed workers.
“We appreciate the concern shown by concerned citizens on what they believe as an erroneous decision by the board that warrants the necessary action. We are elated over the sincerity of our people in pointing out what should be corrected because we really need inputs from stakeholders on how we can improve our services,” Chakas stressed.
The MPSPC official claimed that what the higher education institution needs is the cooperation of the stakeholders on how we can sustain the innovations to our existing programs, projects and activities instead of people hiding under the guise of anonymity and spreading false, unfounded and baseless allegations against officials of the school using fictitious social media accounts with the primary objective of discrediting the overall image of the institution from the view of the public.
Earlier, MPSPC management referred to the board the decision of the Supreme Court that dismissed the charges against the three workers without specifying their reinstatement.
However, the board decided to reinstate the said workers instead of directing management to file the necessary motion before the High Court clarifying its decision on whether or not the reinstatement of the workers is part of the dismissal of the charges filed against them.
Chakas remains optimistic that the issue will be resolved once the board will convene and deliberate on the merits of the issue that was raised against the reinstatement of the dismissed workers.
Last week, an anti-corruption and anti-crime watch dog in the region is questioning the members of the Board of Trustees of the State-run Mountain Province State Polytechnic College (MPSPC) for allegedly reinstating a number of dismissed employees of the institution without the expressed consent of the Supreme Court (SC).
Salvador Liked, secretary of the Cordillera chapter of the Citizens Crime Watch (CCW-CAR), said that some of the dismissed employees brought to his attention the alleged questionable action of the MPSPC board in ordering the reinstatement of some of their fellow fired workers, including their alleged ring leader, when the same was not expressly provided in the ruling that junked the charges against a number of them aside from the fact that the board has no authority to render a legal opinion on a court ruling.
“We suggest that the MPSPC board reconsider its decision to reinstate the three dismissed workers and instead seek clarification before the Supreme court whether or not the decision dismissing the case against them translate to their automatic reinstatement”, Liked stressed.
The anti-corruption crusaders revealed that he will bring the matter to the attention of MPSPC president Dr. Rexton Chakas, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Commissioner-in-Charge Lilian delas Llagas and members of the board for possible reconsideration of their supposed erroneous decision to reinstate the dismissed workers without sufficient legal basis.
Further, he also wrote Solicitor-General Jose Calida to render a legal opinion on the alleged questionable action of the board which he will use in whatever future legal action that will be undertaken to nullify the doubtful reinstatement of the dismissed workers.
Liked argued that the board does not have the power to interpret court decisions that is why the best action that should have been done by the board was to remand the same to the management to file the necessary motion with the SC to clarify whether the decision to dismiss their cases will translate to their outright reinstatement to the service.
By HENT