Cebu City, Philippines—A video of Cebu City Vice Mayoral candidate Mary Ann delos Santos of the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) confronting the police is making rounds in social media.
In the video posted by Delos Santos in her official Facebook page on Wednesday, April 17, 2019, the Cebu City councilor is seen talking to members of the police about their presence in the area. The video, which was viewed more than 36,000 times and was shared 305 times as of 3 p.m. on Thursday, was more than two minutes long.
Part of the caption that came with the video read: “NIGHTMARE IN DAYLIGHT! Alarming presence of police knocking at houses for firearm inspection, a mere coincidence that The Mayor and I met at my place.”
Delos Santos reportedly received calls from her neighbors saying that police officers knocked on their doors to do firearms inspection.
Delos Santos said in her Facebook post that she asked for a search warrant from the police officers but reportedly did not get one.
“Panic and neighbors feeling harassed by police called me to check why in all the past election years, this never happened. Why now?” the former Lahug Barangay Captain added in the post.
“In defense to the people and family, my neighbors in a decent subdivision in Lahug, I had to confront the police and ask for [a] search warrant and who gave the orders to create chaos and fear in my own neighborhood.”
Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) head, Colonel Royina Garma, said in a phone interview with CDN Digital that she is not knowledgeable about what happened in Lahug.
Garma said she is currently on leave so she can’t comment about the incident.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, meanwhile, shared in his Facebook page Delos Santos’ video, calling out his rival for the mayoral seat, Edgar Labella of Barug PDP-Laban.
Delos Santos and Osmeña are BOPK’s bets for the top two positions of the city in this year’s May midterm elections. They are up against Barug PDP-Laban’s tandem of Labella and Mike Rama.
“Today: police going house-to-house in Lahug ‘searching for illegal firearms’ but with no search warrant, refusing to identify who sent them there. Liebella, are you going to say this is staged too? Is this what Holy Week means to you?” Osmeña said in his own Facebook Post.
Labella didn’t respond to Osmeña’s post. But he did say in a Facebook post earlier this week that is not going to respond to negative comments on Facebook this Holy Week.
“In observance of the Holy Week, I will no longer respond to attacks and negative posts or comments against me in Facebook. I invite the Cebuanos to join me in prayer and reflection during this Lenten Season,” Labella said in his Facebook post last Tuesday, April 16. /bmjo