Malacañang has more serious problems to solve rather than expend its energies repealing Executive Order No. 883 that qualifiedly grants career executive service office (CESO) rank to full-fledged lawyers employed in the Executive branch of government.

Senator Joker Arroyo said Malacañang has made this issue more problematic after the President’s men said that this could be thrown to the Truth Commission to take up.

“Why is the Truth Commission the waste basket of all problematic matters attributed to the previous administration? Malacañang, by its own actions, has already trivialized the very commission it created before it has even started,’’ Arroyo asked.

He said the repeal is the brainchild of the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel.

“It would affect thousands of lawyers in the bureaucracy. That is serious and cannot be ignored,” he added.

Arroyo, a lawyer with no relation to former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, explained that the bar examinations is the most difficult, grueling, and challenging government licensure examination among the various professions and disciplines.

“It takes a lawyer nine years to become a full-pledged lawyer – four years of a bachelor’s degree to enter the law school, another four years for the law proper, and one year to prepare for, take the bar, and await the results,’’ he said.

“That is why it is the most awaited and celebrated board exams. The bar examination is not under the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC), unlike all other government examinations; it is given and supervised by the Supreme Court. Outside of medicine, a legal degree is the most expensive, he explained.

Arroyo said the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) is the national organization created by law, which compels lawyers to be members of and pay annual dues to be in good standing.

The IBP, through the Board Governors, not the national President alone, should take a stand on this prejudicial EO. It is their duty to protect as well as discipline lawyers, he said.

Arroyo stressed that there are two issues involved in the matter at hand.

One is – what is the irregularity or illegality or unfairness in EO 883.

The other is – what is the corruption in EO 883, if any, since Malacañang said that this could be a matter for the Truth Commission to take up.