Felipe Q. Atalig
SUPERIOR Court Judge Pro Tempore Dana A. Gutierrez on Thursday ruled that the order of dismissal issued by the Civil Service Commission to former Department of Public Works public information officer Felipe Q. Atalig was “without observance of procedure required by law” and must be “set aside.”
She stated that “the court is concerned with procedural irregularities,” and described as a “reversible error” CSC’s “failure to afford Atalig an opportunity to review the findings of fact and conclusions of law that CSC adopted in its order of dismissal.”
She said the court reverses the order of dismissal, and remands this matter to the CSC for a new hearing not inconsistent with this order.
“It is a nice birthday present for me,” said Atalig, who will be 84 on Oct. 22, 2024.
A former member of the Marianas Legislature and Congress of Micronesia, and a delegate to the NMI’s first constitutional convention in 1976, Atalig filed a petition pro se or on his behalf on Aug. 28, 2020, asking the court for a judicial review of CSC’s order of dismissal that was issued to him after then-DPW Secretary James Ada terminated him in March 2018 for alleged sexual harassment.
Atalig said he and a male co-worker were “joking around” when he placed his hands into his co-worker’s pocket.
Atalig believes that his termination, allegedly for sexual harassment, was pretextual, and that the real reason for it was an unrelated workplace dispute between him and DPW Administrative Services Director Peter Camacho.
In an interview on Friday, Atalig pointed out that no sexual harassment complaint was filed in court against him.
In his lawsuit against DPW, Atalig is claiming administrative leave pay for six years amounting to over $350,000.
