"x x x.
And while previous rulings of the Supreme Court indeed sustained TROs issued by the CA on suspension orders against public officials, the High Court revised this thinking in its recent decisions.
In a 2010 en banc decision on Ombudsman v Samaniego case penned by dismissed Chief Justice Renato Corona, the Court reversed itself and ruled that the Ombudsman’s power to suspend is encompassing and that not even the CA can stop its implementation.
In this ruling, the SC said that Section 7, Rule III of the Rules of Procedure of the Ombudsman, which states that “an appeal shall not stop the decision from being executory,” reigns supreme over Section 12, Rule 43 of the Rules of Court, which grants the CA the power to stay a judgment or decision on appeal.
“The provision in the Rules of Procedure of the Office of the Ombudsman that a decision is immediately executory is a special rule that prevails over the provisions of the Rules of Court.Specialis derogat generali. When two rules apply to a particular case, that which was specially designed for the said case must prevail over the other,” the Court said.
The SC’s 2nd division further strengthened this new ruling in theTuason v CA case that was decided in 2011.
In this ruling the SC said that a CA injunction “that will stay the penalty imposed by the Ombudsman in an administrative case would be to encroach on the rule-making powers of the Ombudsman…”
x x x."
