Actor-turned-politician Rep. Dan Fernandez will be re-installed to his former post and will receive all salaries and benefits due him as a congressman since he was ordered dismissed by the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal last October, Speaker Prospero Nograles said Sunday.

Interviewed, Fernandez said he has ordered his staff to return to work Monday, adding that his Batasan office and three district offices in Laguna will “continue serving the people just as what they have been doing” since he was sacked.

In a precedent-setting ruling, the Supreme Court en banc has rebuffed the HRET by reversing the legislative-judicial panel’s decision that declared Fernandez ineligible to represent Laguna’s First District due to lack of residency.

In a text message, Nograles said the Lower House will honor the ruling of the SC decision released last month.

“(We) will reinstall him (Fernandez) when Congress opens and will abide by the Supreme Court decision. Also, he would be entitled to all salaries and benefits, as if no gap in tenure,” Nograles said in text messages sent to members of House media.

Asked to comment, Fernandez thanked Nograles although he stressed that his legislative staff should also be entitled to the same salaries and benefits that the Lower House would be giving him.

“Employees working under me were also fired when the HRET committed the grave mistake of declaring me ineligible to be congressman,” Fernandez said.

The former actor said seven members of his legislative staff have maintained his congressional district offices despite being fired last October.

A member of Fernandez’s camp claimed he is convinced the lawmaker’s closeness to former Speaker Jose de Venecia could be one reason why congressmen-members of the HRET allegedly supported his ouster as congressman.

Fernandez, a godson of De Venecia, was a former member of the House opposition who joined the administration-backed Lakas-Kampi- CMD in a bid to forestall an impending adverse HRET ruling on the protest against him.

He is running for re-election as administration bet in the same congressional district. His principal rival, former Rep. Uliran Joaquin, was believed to have initiated the HRET protest.

Fernandez said the ruling on his case was the first time that the High Court rejected an HRET decision. There are three SC justices who are members of HRET. One of them acts as chairman of the panel.

In a 29-page decision penned by Associate Justice Teresita J. Leonardo-De Castro, the court en banc upheld Fernandez’s petition for certiorari and prohibition in connection with the HRET ruling that had been declared final and executory early last year.

The SC ruled that based on documentary evidence presented by private respondent Jesus L. Vicente before the HRET, i.e., (a) Fernandez’s certificates of candidacy (CoCs) for various positions in 1998, 2001, and 2004 which all indicated his residence as Pagsanjan, Laguna within the Fourth District of the province, (b) his application for a driver’s license which indicated Pagsanjan, Laguna as his residence, and (c) the statement in his CoCs, including his 2007 CoC for congressman for the First District of Laguna, that his place of birth as Pagsanjan, Laguna only proves that Fernandez’s domicile of origin was Pagsanjan, Laguna, and it remained his domicile up to 2005 at the latest.

The high court pointed out that the law does not require persons to be in their home 24 hours a day, seven days a week to fulfill the residency requirement and exercising their rights of ownership thereto in other places aside from the address they had indicated in their place of residence in their CoC.

It also held that the HRET has put undue emphasis on petitioner Fernandez owning houses in Pagsanjan and Cabuyao while only leasing a townhouse in Laguna as that in effect imposed a property requirement to the right to hold public office which is unconstitutional.