LAST week’s Makati City Hall episode in which followers of Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay clashed with police who were trying to serve a second suspension order against him is but reflective of how incumbent officials facing graft charges respond whenever they are penalized with this sanction by the Palace or the Ombudsman.
The second suspension order issued against Binay came in relation to the allegedly overpriced Makati Science High School. The first suspension order was rendered inutile after Binay insisted on staying at City Hall and pointed to a Court of Appeals Temporary Restraining Order as basis for his defiance.
The clash between Binay’s followers and the police also came on the heels of his father Vice President Jejomar Binay’s resignation from the Cabinet and his unbridled criticism of the Aquino administration as being “slow, lazy and unresponsive.”
Still, Binay’s decision to temporarily step down from office pending his appeal for a TRO from the Court of Appeals was the obvious and practical solution to defuse the tension between his followers and the police and the Department of Interior and Local Government who were only enforcing an Ombudsman suspension order.
Cebu is no stranger to local officials acting defiantly against suspension orders issued by the Office of the President, the Ombudsman or even the DILG. Despite the blessings experienced by the Rama administration in the past few days, the mayor surely isn’t discounting the possibility that he will be served a suspension order in relation to the calamity cash assistance case pending at the DILG.
Another suspension case involving Dumanjug Mayor Nelson Garcia had been defused earlier after the mayor decided not to hole up in office and allow instead the vice mayor to assume his post, at least for now.
There were reports of Mayor Garcia supposedly trying to return to office which have yet to be confirmed as of this writing. If he does decide to return it can be quite problematic as far as peace and order in Dumanjug town is concerned.
Suffice it to say that the mayor is using every recourse at his disposal to return to office and nullify the six-month suspension order that he said had no legal basis because it was enforced on a mere Provincial Board resolution.
Situations in which local or nationally elected officials and their followers stage rallies ventilating their defiance against what they perceived to be persecution from the administration may have rallied public sympathy to their cause if the country is under martial law or is governed by an administration that has low or zero public support and however one dislikes it, it is par for the course in this country.
But we hope such public officials continually remind their supporters to avoid violence at all costs and wait for the country’s legal system to address their grievances.