Former Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is accompanied by supporters during a press conference where he vehemently denied being involved in illegal drugs after his name was included in President Duterte’s list of illegal drug protectors. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday took one notch higher the allegations linking former city mayor Michael Rama to the drug trade by claiming that the latter got P10 million from Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz, the slain top drug personality in Central Visayas.
But Rama will have none of it.
“Prepare. I will sue,” he said.
Fed up with continued accusations of being a drug lord protector thrown against him by his political nemesis, Rama said he will file a libel case against the incumbent mayor.
The latest tirade from Osmeña came yesterday during his regular press conference in his office at city hall. The accusation: that Rama has been receiving drug money from Jaguar.
Aside from Rama, Osmeña also named National Police Commission Central Visayas (Napolcom 7) Director Homer Cabaral as the alleged top drug protector in the city.
But while President Rodrigo Duterte can get away with publicly naming officials like Rama that he claimed were coddling drug lords, Osmeña does not have the same immunity, so said Rama.
Rama said he is not taking another accusation sitting down.
“Pataka! Susmaryosep. Kana gyud, ikiha gyud nako siya ana (Nonsense! With that, I will really sue him). If he made that statement, I will sue him. Wala nay lie detector ana (There’s no need for a lie detector test). I will sue him. I will have my lawyer prepare (a libel case) because that is a blatant lie,” he told Cebu Daily News by phone.
Rama also encouraged Cabaral to do the same and that he is willing to do the filing of the libel case jointly with the Napolcom official.
Nonsense
Cabaral likewise blasted Osmeña for making the allegation.
“Nabuang na na siya. Dili na lang ko motubag nianang mga accusations nga walay klaro. Pataka lang og yawyaw (He must be out of his mind. I would rather not answer vague accusations. He’s talking nonsense),” he told CDN in a phone interview last night.
While he grew up in Barangay Duljo-Fatima, Cebu City, Cabaral said he never met nor communicated with Jaguar, who also grew up in the same barangay.
“I heard about him, but I do not know him personally. It doesn’t mean that if I lived in Duljo, I am a drug protector,” said Cabaral, who has been the head of the National Police Commission in Central Visayas for six years now.
He begged off from issuing further statements, saying he will answer Osmeña’s accusations when he returns to Cebu from Manila, where he is currently attending a Napolcom seminar.
OSMEÑA
Main suspect
At the City Hall, however, Osmeña said Cabaral was the one who has been telling “lies” to the Napolcom central office, which lead to the mayor losing his deputation and control over the city’s police earlier this year.
“Cabaral is the main suspect (as) drug protector. He’s a member of Napolcom. You look at this linkage. If you’re going to look at isolated case against him, you’re just gonna say it’s just a coincidence, but it’s not,” Osmeña told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.
Osmeña said that Cabaral has been living in Duljo for 20 years, and so did Jaguar, and he believed that the two had a connection regarding the rampant drug cases during Rama’s term.
“Cabaral lived in Duljo for the past 20 years, Jaguar lived in Duljo for the past 20 years.Cabaral’s wife ran for Barangay captain of Duljo. So what’s Cabaral saying, I don’t know Jaguar? He’s one of the most powerful and most influential persons in the whole barangay,” said Osmeña.
He also revealed that when Rama took his review for the bar years back, he stayed at the place of Cabaral in Manila.
Osmeña said he suspected Cabaral as the one who had allegedly been “planting information” against him and whom he believed was the one who recommended for Supt. Romeo Santander to replace Supt. George Ylanan as head of the Cebu City Intelligence Branch (CIB).
Osmeña said that one of the underlings of Jaguar offered to tell him the story for money after the Diaz compound was raided by Santander and the CIB.
In September 2015, Santander and the CIB, in cooperation with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency 7, Special Weapons and Tactics-Cebu City, Regional Public Safety Battalion 7 and the Women and Children’s Desk Protection Desk-Cebu City, raided Jaguar’s compound and recovered a total of P4 million worth of shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) and drug paraphernalia.
Osmeña claimed it was Rama who tipped Santander about the drug stash in Jaguar’s compound after Rama, then the mayor of the city, failed to receive the 20 million he was allegedly demanding from the drug lord.
“The story I heard was that Jaguar gave 10 million and Mike wanted 20 million, and Jaguar said no, and Santander raided Jaguar’s place. Jaguar got so angry that someone from Jaguar sent a story that offered me money. I haven’t met Jaguar and I don’t know how much he (was) offering because I did not bother to ask,” Osmeña said.
Lie detector test
As to who could be telling the truth, both Osmeña and Rama had earlier agreed to undergo a lie detector test.
Only earlier this week, Rama accepted Osmeña’s challenge to a lie detector test. Osmeña had said he wanted personnel from the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Bureau Investigation to conduct the process.
“That’s why I asked Mike to take a lie detector test. Did you ask money from Jaguar or not? Did you receive money from Jaguar or not?”
Osmeña has not set a timetable for the test. “In the meantime, he (Rama) can practice his emotion control so that the observer wouldn’t jump,” the mayor quipped.
Former Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama called for a press conference yesterday to answer questions from the media regarding the entry of Team Rama allies to the administration party, PDP-Laban. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
But while he said he is willing to be subjected to a lie detector test, Rama said there is no need to do so anymore and that Osmeña should just answer the libel case he plans to file against him in court.
“No lie detector needed. I will sue him. Let him answer that allegation. Prepare. Because I’m going to sue him. And I’m very damn serious about it,” Rama said.
He admitted that he personally knows Cabaral since they were classmates in the 1970s.
He described the Napolcom official as a “simple man” who, if the latter is up to it, can jointly file the libel case against Osmeña with him.
“He (Osmeña) should not be talking ill of anyone. I think he must have a problem with his mental capacity of memory and he does not deserve to be there in City Hall anymore… He should learn a lesson because he cannot just be destroying anyone,” Rama added.
Accusing him as the one who had asked for money from Jaguar was “preposterous,” Rama said, when it was Osmeña who had earlier admitted that he was offered campaign money by Jaguar but that he had refused to accept it.
“I cannot remember the face of Jaguar. (But) I have heard of his name that it has always been associated with Tommy Osmeña and BO-PK,” Rama countered.