New MSU president assail Supreme Court petition to nullify appointment

MARAWI CITY – The new president of the Mindanao State University (MSU) on Thursday branded as intrigue” the insinuations his March 8 designation by President Benigno Aquino III was a midnight appointment,” bereft of legal propriety.Habib Macaayong, the newly-appointed MSU president, took over the school presidency last April 14 from predecessor Macapadu Muslim in a symbolic transition rite witnessed by his subordinate-faculty members and non-teaching personnel and students.An MSU professor, Said Makil, had asked the Supreme Court to look into the validity of Macaayong’s appointment, alleging it was signed by President Aquino signed amid an election period.Macaayong, in a press statement Wednesday, said his appointment was signed by the president on March 8, ahead of the March 25 start of the ban on promotion and hiring of government officials and rank-and-file employees being imposed by the Commission on Elections.Macaayong said MSU faculty members and students, in fact, gave him a rousing welcome during his investiture as the university’s new president. The event was very touching. It was a source of inspiration for me to work hard for the students, the faculty members and the university as a functional community, a bulwark of peace education,” Macaayong said.He said he had asked the High Tribunal, through his lawyers, to dismiss the petition of Makil to nullify his appointment as MSU president.Macaayong said while Makil’s move is virtually unpopular” among MSU insiders, it has unduly spawned mistrust” on Malacañang among some who are unaware of the constitutional legitimacy of his appointment which the president signed on March 8.In his petition to the Supreme Court, Makil alleged that Macaayong’s appointment was inappropriate, done against an appointment ban, defeating the essence of constitutional restrictions onmidnightappointments.Macaayong said Muslim, now an erstwhile university president, would not have relinquished the MSU presidency to him if there were irregularities in his March 8 appointment.