The Court of Appeals has sustained its earlier decision upholding the preventive suspension of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency director for intelligence and investigation service Randy Pedroso, in connection with the graft complaint filed against him before the Office of the Ombudsman.
In a two-page resolution, the CA’s former Special Seventeenth Division junked the motion for reconsideration filed by Pedroso for failing to raise new arguments to support his plea to overturn its Aug. 2, 2017 decision, which affirmed the Ombudsman’s suspension order against him issued on July 19, 2017.
“A circumspect review of the said motion shows that it fails to state new arguments that would compel this Court to grant the prayer therein embodied. The fact is, the issues raised therein were already considered, weighed, and resolved at length by this Court in the impugned decision. There exists no need to belabor the issues one more time,” the appellate court ruled.
“Wherefore, the subject motion for reconsideration is hereby denied,” it added.
In its earlier decision, the appellate court held that the Ombudsman’s order was not issued with grave abuse of discretion as it was anchored on supporting documentary evidence to the complaint.
It said the petitioner could not invoke his right to due process and security of tenure because preventive suspensions are not a punishment but merely intended to avoid interference by respondent public officials in pending investigations.
The PDEA official is being investigated by the Ombudsman due to his alleged involvement along with his five other PDEA officials in the anomalous lease of luxury vehicles for PDEA operations from January to June 2013.
Associate Justices Eduardo Peralta, Jr., and Nina Antonio-Valenzuela concurred with the ruling.