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Issues Concern: LGU Head Related to a Contractor’s Officer

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Whether the relationship between the head of a Local Government Unit (LGU) and an officer of the contractor, i.e., an officer of a contractor is the brother of the son-in-law of the Mayor, is prohibited under Republic Act (RA) No. 9184 and its revised Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).

In the case of Tiggangay v. Wacas , the Supreme Court ruled x x x:

Affinity may also be defined as “the relation which one spouse because of marriage has to blood relatives of the other. The connection existing, in consequence of marriage between each of the married persons and the kindred of the other. The doctrine of affinity grows out of the canonical maxim that marriage makes husband and wife one. The husband has the same relation by affinity to his wife’s blood relatives as she has by consanguinity and vice versa.

Indeed, “there is no affinity between the blood relatives of one spouse and the blood relatives of the other. A husband is related by affinity to his wife’s brother, but not to the wife of his wife’s brother. There is no affinity between the husband’s brother and the wife’s sister; this is called affinitas affinitatis.“

Applying the foregoing decision, while the Mayor is related by affinity within the first degree to his/her son-in-law, no such relationship by affinity exists between the Mayor and the blood relatives of his/her son-in-law as they are not in-laws of each other. Hence, the automatic disqualification under Section 47 of RA 9184 and its IRR is inapplicable because the officer of the contractor is not related by affinity within the third civil degree to the Mayor.