The Court of Appeals has upheld the constitutionality of President Benigno Aquino III's executive order to nullify so-called "midnight appointments" or those made by his predecessor – former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – during the election ban in 2010.

In separate resolutions, the Court of Appeals's former Eight Division led by Justice Noel Tijam junked the respective petitions of five government officials who contested Aquino's Executive Order No. 2.

The petitioners whose petitions were junked were:

A sixth petition, by National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) commissioner and secretary Chief Bai Omera Dianalan-Lucman, meanwhile was favored by the appeals court, saying the petitioner should be reinstated to government office because she was not covered by the election ban.

The petitioners originally questioned the legality of EO 2 before the Supreme Court.

Incidentally, newly installed Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno belonged to the majority of magistrates that ruled in October 2010 to issue a status quo ante order against EO 2, meaning the status before the EO was implemented should be observed.

The SC ruling, however, only covered Dianalan-Lucman's case.

Sereno's predecessor, dismissed Chief Justice Renato Corona, had been branded by critics as a midnight appointee because he was given the chief justice post in May 2010, within the election ban period.

Under Article VII, Section 15 of the 1987 Constitution, the President is barred from making appointments two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his or her term.

However, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Mrs. Arroyo could appoint a replacement to then retiring Chief Justice Reynato Puno, saying the election ban does not apply to vacancies in the high court.

But as for the six other petitioners questioning EO 2, their petitions were remanded by the high court to the CA. — LBG, GMA News