Malacañang on Thursday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to dismiss petitions seeking to nullify Executive Order (EO) Nos. 2 and 3, saying no law was violated when President Aquino issued the two directives.

EO 2 nullified the “midnight appointments” issued by former President now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo while EO 3 revoked an order by the previous administration – EO 883 – which granted career executive service officer (CESO) rank to lawyers in the government service.

Through the Office of the Solicitor General, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. argued that the President, being the appointing authority, has the power to revoke a void or incomplete appointment without need of judicial intervention.

“The President does not have to invoke the jurisdiction of the courts, via a petition for quo warranto, every time he intends to revoke a public servant or revoke an appointment,” Ochoa added.

Contrary to the claim of petitioners Assistant Secretary Jose Arturo de Castro of the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Director Eddie Tamondong of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), Ochoa argued that EO 2 does not violate Section 1, Article III of the Constitution.

That constitutional provision proscribes deprivation of a person of his property rights, without just cause and compliance with the cardinal requirements of due process.

Ochoa said the petitioners may be right if they were employees in the private sector. “A public office is not a property right. No one has a vested right to any public office, much less a vested right to an expectancy of holding a public office. The constitutional principle of a public office as a public trust precludes any propriety claim to public office,” he said.

De Castro and Tamondong argued that EO 2 violated their civil servant’s right to security of tenure under Section 2(3), Article IX-B of the Constitution when it summarily dismissed civil service employees without just cause and due process.

As regards EO 3, Ochoa insisted that former President Arroyo’s EO 883 is void because it amends laws which confer exclusive jurisdiction to the Career Executive Service Board (CESB) over the Career Executive Service (CES).

“EO 883 modifies Presidential Decree No. 1 and EO 292 conferring CESB’s exclusive jurisdiction to promulgate rules, standards and procedures on the selection, classification, compensation and career development of members of the CES and to prescribe entrance to the third level,” the Executive Secretary pointed out.