The Maguindanao del Norte impasse, with the spectacle of having two acting governors holding office simultaneously, is obviously caused by wrong legal advice of the government lawyers of the Office of the Solicitor General, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Acting Governor Bai Fatima Ainee Sinsuat, who assumed office pursuant to Section 30, Republic Act 11560, holds office at Datu Odin Sinsuat municipality, which is the seat of the Provincial Capitol of Maguindanao del Norte.

Acting OIC Abdulraof Abdul Macacua, appointed by the President, presumably upon the advice of government lawyers, pursuing the theory that there was a vacancy in the position of Acting Governor in the newly created Province of Maguindanao del Norte, is holding fort in Cotabato City, curiously not a part of Maguindanao del Norte.

The Acting Vice-Governor Sharapudin Tucao Mastura and the members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Maguindanao del Norte, hold their sessions at the old Capitol Building in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte.

The government lawyers foisted the legal opinion that Section 50 of Republic Act 11550 which created the new provinces of Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte is not applicable to Acting Governor Bai Fatima Ainee Sinsuat and Acting Vice-Governor Sharafudin Tucson Mastura, in so far as the law makes them the transitional highest provincial officials that will govern Maguindanao del Norte until their successors have been elected and qualified in the elections of 2022.

They opined that since the plebiscite ratifying the law creating the new provinces occurred after the 2022 national and local elections, and not prior to the elections, as contemplated in the said legal provision, the assumption of the elected Vice-Governor and the highest-ranking board member elected in the 2022 local elections in the then undivided Maguindanao Province, cannot take place.

To their legal minds, by reason of such circumstance, a vacancy was created in the positions of Acting Governor, Acting Vice-Governor, and members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan.

This wrong legal opinion, which apparently became the basis of their legal advice to the appointing power, paved the way for the appointment of Abdulraof Abdul Macacua as Acting OIC of the Province of Maguindanao del Norte.

That wrong legal opinion and advice created the legal fix Maguindanao del Norte is presently in. It is the proximate cause of why the efficient and effective delivery of basic services to the people of Maguindanao del Norte has been stalled, if not completely stopped. So too is the failure of the employees of the province Maguindanao del Norte to draw their salaries on time, if they receive it at all.

These lawyers have forgotten a basic tenet in legislation. A law cannot create a vacuum. It cannot allow a situation where there will be a hiatus in governance relative to who will assume such a task. Nor will it tolerate a circumstance that there will be either a stoppage of work or a failure or a delay in the delivery of basic services to the people.

(To be continued)