In boxing, a sucker punch is defined as a blow made without warning. It can be legal, i.e. made during the fight, or illegal, as in delivered as a low blow by either fighters while the referee is trying to separate them after they locked each other up.
The suspension issued by the Office of the President against Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is a sucker punch that stemmed from a case the Rama camp didn’t see coming into play.
They were all watching the ongoing hearings of an administrative complaint over the P20,000 calamity aid which his critics said the mayor and other Cebu city officials didn’t deserve to receive in 2013 since they weren’t calamity victims of typhoon Yolanda or the Cebu-Bohol earthquake.
However, the mayor was placed on preventive suspension for a case that didn’t involve pocketing public funds.
He was benched for a little-known administrative case filed by barangay Labangon chairman Victor Buendia who was sore about the 2014 demolition of a concrete island which his barangay was almost finished building, ideally to have street lights, in the middle of a national road.
The project cost under P100,000.
According to the Dept. of Public Works and Highways, that initiative was a safety hazard for motorists and had to go.
So the mayor’s order followed to demolish it. He didn’t seek a court for that.
It’s difficult to see how the removal of some hollow blocks from the middle of a road could unseat a mayor for 60 days when its five months to a local election where he’s seeking a third term.
If it was indeed an error for a mayor to move quickly for public safety instead of going to court first to issue a demolition order, couldn’t that have been corrected with an admonition and an order to restore the road divider?
If this were an urban poor settlement, where families lost their homes — and Rama has been criticized and sued in court in several examples of demolition without a court order — one would see the need for harsh disciplinary action.
But a road divider?
All along, Rama and his allies expected a suspension order to come from the ongoing investigation by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) into the P20,000 calamity aid given generously to all Cebu city officials and employees.
That was serious enough to send DILG hearing officer from Manila to Cebu for several hearings. Then out of the blue, a Labangon road divider knocks Rama out for 60 days. The timing and severity of the suspension leave most people wondering if someone in the Palace is out to punish him for good.