LEGAZPI CITY — To ease the political tension in Albay, Fr. Rex Paul Arjona of St. Roch Parish addressed the so-called silent majority who are rallying behind ousted Gov. Noel Rosal and urged them to remain calm. He also asked the other side of the province's political landscape "to be fair." In a 22-page resolution dated August 29 but only released on September 5, the Office of the Ombudsman ordered for the dismissal of former Albay governor Noel Rosal from service and permanently barred him from holding any public office due to the illegal reassignment of personnel. The Ombudsman said it found Rosal guilty of grave misconduct and oppression over his decision to reassign without justification three department heads to lower ranked positions in different offices. The ruling was based on a complaint filed on Nov. 4, 2022 by Legazpi City resident Adrian Loterte, who accused Rosal of corruption and misconduct. The charges involved the removal of Provincial Engineering Office chief Dante Baclao, Provincial Agricultural Office chief Cheryll Rebeta and Provincial Human Settlement Office chief Gina Paz Sipin. The Ombudsman said Baclao was illegally moved to the Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office; Rebeta to the Provincial Tourism, Culture and Arts Office; and Sipin to the Provincial Education Department. Because of the recent ruling, supporters of Rosal voiced their support to the ousted governor, saying that the allegations were baseless and politically motivated. Rosal, who was earlier removed from office by the Department of the Interior and Local Government upon the recommendation of the Commission on Elections, said he will raise his case to the Supreme Court as the last arbiter of the law of the land. "This penalty has not yet attained finality. This penalty is not yet executory. We still have legal remedies available, all of which we shall resort to when necessary. Because right now, the battle is not yet over," Rosal said. "Far from what some media outlets might project, we have done nothing illegal, irregular, unconstitutional and so we shall fight this out until the very end."
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