Arroyo legal counsel is new solicitor general

CHIEF presidential legal counsel Antonio Eduardo Nachura has been designated by Malacañang as the new solicitor general, replacing Alfredo Benipayo who abruptly resigned last Wednesday.

Benipayo tendered his irrevocable resignation effective April 1 in the middle of a major legal battle faced by Malacañang at the Supreme Court to defend the legality of Proclamation No. 1017 issued by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

With his appointment as the top government lawyer, Nachura has his hands full with the cases he has inherited from Benipayo, including constitutionality suits against the “calibrated pre-emptive response” policy on street demonstrations, and Executive Order No. 464 prohibiting government and military officials from testifying in congressional inquiries without clearance from Arroyo.

A two-term congressman of the second district of Western Samar until 2004, Nachura made a name as one of the prosecutors in the impeachment trial of former president Joseph Estrada in 2000-2001. That stint landed him the job of Arroyo’s “resource person” during the aborted impeachment process at the House of Representatives against her last year.

At the time, he was also being eyed as Department of Education (DepEd) secretary after Florencio Abad quit last year, along with nine Cabinet secretaries and top-level officials who vacated their posts in July and called on Arroyo to resign amid allegations of electoral fraud.

The 64-year-old lawyer’s stint in government includes being undersecretary for legal affairs and legislative liaison of the then Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) from 1994 to 1998 and commissioner of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board from 1993 to 1994.

But he is still remembered — not quite fondly — by DepEd personnel as the education undersecretary who made possible the comeback of notorious supplier Jesusa “Susie” de la Cruz to the central office in Pasig.

When Nachura quit the education department in 1998 to run for congressman, he left behind a questionable P81.7 million school desk contract that de la Cruz had bagged.