By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Following a thanksgiving mass held in the lobby of the Bacolod City Government Center (BCGC), yesterday, Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia said those who lost in the last elections are trying to destabilize his administration.
“The problem is there are people who have no work trying to sabotage our administration,” he asserted. “We cannot really blame them because they lost in the recent elections.”
He suggested they wait for the next election instead of “wasting our time.”
The mass was held after Associate Justice Germano Francisco Legaspi of the 18th division Court of Appeals-Visayas Station granted the mayor a preliminary injunction on his pending dismissal case with the Office of the Ombudsman.
Leonardia said he is optimistic, citing the “Aguinaldo Doctrine,” also known as the Condonation Legal Doctrine, wherein reelection to office is considered an acceptance of the official’s past actions.
The argument against the use of the condonation rule was brought up in a motion to inhibit, earlier filed against the said court by journalist and chair of the Negros chapter of Mothers and Relatives against Tyranny and Repression (MARTYR) Edgar Cadagat.
The Supreme Court already ruled against the use of the doctrine “because of its absurdity and impracticability,” he argued.
He also noted, with the successful use of the doctrine, the mayor will use it as an “excuse for all his pending administrative cases.” That was followed by a litany of pending cases the mayor has before the Office of Ombudsman, including four plunder cases./WDJ