Margot Osmeña can end up as acting mayor
COUNCILOR Margot Osmeña (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
COUNCILOR Margot Osmeña could end up as the acting mayor of Cebu City should the Commission on Elections (Comelec) allow the implementation of the Malacañang order to suspend Mayor Michael Rama, Vice Mayor Edgar Labella and 12 city councilors.
Rene Burdeos, the regional director of the Department of Interior and Local Government in Central Visayas (DILG-7), said that as a general rule, the councilor with the most number of votes gathered in the last election could be appointed as acting mayor in the event the vice mayor is also unavailable.
In this case, it will be Osmeña, a two-term councilor and currently the council’s majority floor leader, as she topped the city council race in 2013 with close to 130,000 votes.
Asked about this possibility, Osmeña said she did not think so much about it.
“I don’t really think about those things. I take each day as it comes. I’m not doing any preparation to become acting mayor or anything,” she said in an interview yesterday.
Osmeña was only one of four city councilors not included in the suspension order, as they were not among the council members who approved the now discredited P84-million appropriation measure that granted a P20,000 calamity aid to each city official and employee in 2013.
The Office of the President, in an order signed on April 6 by Executive Secretary Pacquito Ochoa Jr., ordered Rama, Labella and 12 of the city’s 16 elected councilors suspended for six months for abuse of authority when they granted themselves and city hall employees the calamity aid in December 2013 even if they were not victims of the 7.2 earthquake and supertyphoon Yolanda that hit a wide area in the Visayas in October and November, respectively, of that year.
Ochoa knew the suspension order could not be implemented during the election period without a clearance from Comelec and thus directed DILG Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento to seek the advice of Comelec on the matter.
Burdeos said that should Comelec approve the suspension order, Sarmiento would then issue an order to direct him or any other DILG official to serve the suspension order.
Suspended along with Rama and Labella were Team Rama councilors Gerardo Carillo, Noel Wenceslao, David Tumulak, and Nendel Hanz Abella; and BOPK councilors Nestor Archival Sr., Mary Ann delos Santos, Sisinio Andales, Alvin Arcilla, Roberto Cabarrubias, Ma. Nida Cabrera, Alvin Dizon and Eugenio Gabuya Jr.
Burdeos said it would be unlikely that City Hall would be left to operate in a vacuum.
“The rule on succession will apply,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday.
If the suspension is enforced, only Councilors Osmeña, Leah Japson, James Anthony Cuenco and Richard Osmeña will be left to run City Hall.
Osmeña and Japson are with BO-PK while Cuenco and Richard Osmeña are with Team Rama.
An option is for President Aquino to appoint acting councilors so that the city council could reach the required “simple majority” of nine councilors, he added.
But Tinago Barangay Captain Joel Garganera, an ally of Rama, believed the suspension order was “orchestrated” by Tomas Osmeña, the former city mayor and husband of Margot, who allegedly even allowed his own own party mates in Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan to become “collateral damage,” referring to the eight BO-PK councilors who were included in the suspension order.
“Naa gyud nay collateral damage. Kana sab sila i-apil na sila aron di klaro kaayo (They were collatoral damage. They were included so it would not look so obvious),” Garganera said.
Garganera said the suspension order only showed that Tomas, who is running for mayor against Rama, is very influential in the Aquino administration and the Liberal Party (LP).
Garganera said he also believed that Tomas was responsible for the “ouster” of Chief Supt. Manuel Gaerlan as director of the Police Regional Office in
Central Visayas (PRO-7). Gaerlan was transferred to the PRO in Davao region last week as part of the Philippine National Police’s reshuffle of officers.
“Tommy gets what he wants from the Liberal Party,” he said.
Garganera claimed LP gave in to Tomas’ demands when he allegedly threatened to leave the party and its standard-bearer Mar Roxas in favor of presidential bet Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
Lawyer Reymelio Delute, who filed the administrative complaint against the city officials, admitted he asked the blessing of Tomas, before he lodged the complaint against Rama and others.
“Nananghid ko ni Tomas before I filed the case as a follower of BO-PK and as a sign of respect sa iyaha (I asked permission from Tomas before I filed the complaint as a follower of BO-PK and as a sign of respect for him).”
He said Osmeña replied with, “Go ahead. They can defend themselves.”
Delute said he was happy with the suspension order but was disappointed that it came “too late.”
“It is no longer as effective since it is now too close to the elections. It should have been served in January or February,” he said.
He noted that the DILG conducted marathon hearings on the administrative case and concluded the same in December 2015 yet.
Dizon, in a text message, meanwhile said he was looking into several legal remedies, including filing a notice of appeal.
“Let me point out that I decided to receive the P20,000 calamity aid (in) good faith. I used the money (to) temporarily (relocate) my family (from Ormoc City) to Cebu three days after the (Supertyphoon) Yolanda (hit in Nov. 8, 2013),” he said.
Dizon said he later returned the aid to the city government “out of sensitivity to growing negative public opinion on the legality of the calamity aid and this was even before the COA (Commission on Audit) came out with its report disallowing the transaction.”
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