Duterte asked: Intervene in Tom-LTO-7, cops rows

COUNCILOR GARCIA TURNS TO PRESIDENT

Cebu City’s opposition Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia is asking President Rodrigo Duterte to intervene and address the controversy involving
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and a government agency, and the mayor and the police in an Inayawan project.

Garcia, in a press conference on Friday told reporters that he made his request to the President in a letter dated Sept. 19, 2018 through Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea of the Office of the President.

He said that recent developments constrained him to inform the President about Mayor Osmeña’s alleged hampering of the functions of the national government.

CDN tried to to contact Osmeña through text for his comments but to no avail.

In the letter, Garcia was referring to Osmeña’s recent threat to ask the Land Transportation Office in Central Visayas (LTO-7) to transfer from their current office, which stands in a city-owned lot, if the LTO-7 would not do something about the complaints about the delays in motorcycle registrations.

Osmeña then in a Facebook post said that he would use the office, which is along Natalio Bacalso Avenue in Cebu City, as an extension of the Cebu City Medical Center.

Aside from that, Garcia also said that Osmeña allegedly refused to support the police in the construction of a satellite office in a donated lot in Barangay Inayawan, Cebu City.

Osmeña allegedly issued a clearing order on June 5, 2018 to the Prevention Restoration Order Beautification Enhancement (PROBE) team, which was relayed to the contractor of the satellite police office – to clear any obstructions in the lot.

Last Wednesday, the barangay captain of Inayawan, who is allied with Bando Osmena-Pundok Kauswagan, warned the Cebu City Police Office (CPPO) of possible legal action if the CPPO would insist on building the satellite police station on that controversial donated lot.

The barangay official said that the reasons for that were irregularities in the deed of donation and it would cause traffic in the area.

“I think the President should be informed on our mayor’s relationship with the national government agencies (based here in Cebu),” Garcia said in his letter.

“As a Sangguniang Panlungsod member, it pains me to see the City of Cebu pitted against the national government, and having our constituents suffer for it. While my colleagues and I continue the fight in the city council, there is only so much the minority bloc can accomplish,” he said.

In Garcia’s letter, he also requested for the Palace, if possible, to intervene and address the situation.

Osmeña has been at the receiving end of President Duterte’s tirades recently, with the latter describing the former as a hubris or someone with exaggerated self-pride in his visit on August 30 to Cebu.

In mid-September during a post Typhoon Ompong briefing in Ilocos Norte, the President again criticized Osmeña for allegedly facilitating the release of three suspects arrested for selling illegally refilled butane canisters.