ALLOW MIKE’S SUSPENSION

The ball is now in the hands of the Commission on Elections.

The Office of the President, through the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), asked the Comelec for an exemption from the election ban on suspension of elective officials to enable the DILG to implement the six-month suspension meted by Malacañang against Mayor Michael Rama, Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella and 12 city councilors.

The DILG, through Undersecretary Austere Panadero, requested for exemption from the ban on suspension in a letter dated April 8 that was addressed to Maria Norina Tangaro-Casingal, director of the Comelec law department.

The letter, along with the Malacañang suspension order signed by Executive Secretary Pacquito Ochoa Jr., was copy furnished to Rene Burdeos, the regional director of DILG in Central Visayas.

A copy of the letter was also received yesterday by the poll body’s regional office in Central Visayas (Comelec 7), which was in turn furnished to Cebu Daily News.

Comelec 7 Director Jose Nick Mendros, in an interview, said there was no word yet when the Comelec law department would act on the DILG request.

According to Mendros, the Comelec law department would need to make its recommendation first before it could be acted upon by the Comelec en banc.

The letter confirmed an earlier report received by Rama’s camp that Malacañang has gone to Comelec to ask that it be exempted from the election rules.

Aside from Rama and Labella, Councilors Nestor Archival Sr., Mary Ann de los Santos, David Tumulak, Nendell Hanz Abella, Sisinio Andales, Alvin Arcilla, Roberto Cabarrubias, Ma. Nida Cabrera, Gerardo Carillo, Alvin Dizon, Eugenio Gabuya Jr. and Noel Wenceslao also face suspension.

Mendros explained that the DILG could seek exemption from the ban on suspension if the order came from the Office of the Ombudsman, on cases related to anti-graft and corrupt practices; and from the Office of the President, for cases involving grave abuse of authority.

Malacañang, through Ochoa, ordered on April 7 that Rama and the 13 other city officials be suspended for six months for abuse of authority for granting a P20,000 calamity aid to each city official and employee even if they were not victims of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake and Supertyphoon Yolanda that hit the Visayas in 2013.

As this developed, barangay leaders in Cebu City rallied behind the beleaguered mayor and joined his call for Interior Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento to resign from office for allegedly ignoring a subordinate’s recommendation to dismiss the calamity aid case against the mayor and 13 other city officials.

The case also took on a deeper political color yesterday when the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), the party that Rama is allied to, described the recent development in Cebu City Hall as “excessive, vicious and relentless.”

UNA spokesperson Mon Ilagan, in a press statement, said Malacañang’s suspension order was allegedly a “political squeeze” and part of the administration’s plan to “knock out” the opponents of Liberal Party (LP) in Cebu City.

Rama, in a press conference yesterday, said it became clear to him that Malacañang and DILG were out to get him because they chose to overlook an earlier recommendation by DILG hearing officer Isidro Barrios III to drop the case against the mayor and his co-accused.

“I don’t believe anymore in DILG. Tell them they don’t deserve my respect anymore. Having an investigation officer (who was) not respected. I don’t believe in Mel Sarmiento. He doesn’t deserve to be there. He should step down, resign,” Rama said.

An alleged memorandum signed by Barrios and addressed to Sarmiento in December 2015 found that Rama, Labella and the 12 councilors were “not culpable” of the complaint filed by lawyer Reymelio Delute, a known ally of the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK), a local party led by Rama’s political opponent and challenger in the mayoral race this May 9, Tomas Osmeña.

Rama questioned why Malacañang disregarded the recommendation of Barrios when the latter even came all the way to Cebu just to conduct exhaustive marathon hearings that the mayor and his co-accused, through their respective legal counsels, religiously attended.

“Maayo pag wala na lang nag-investigation,” lamented Rama.

‘Disturbing’ detail

Labella, in a separate interview, also pointed to a “disturbing” detail in the suspension order against the city officials, noting that the memorandum from the Office of the President to Sarmiento was dated a day earlier than the actual decision from Malacañang.

The suspension order signed by Ochoa was dated April 7. But Ochoa’s memorandum to Sarmiento to ask clearance from Comelec was dated April 6.

“Look at the dates. It’s like putting the cart before the horse. How can a supposedly responsible public officials issue a memorandum dated April 6 when the decision is April 7? This is a very disturbing development,” Labella said in a phone interview yesterday.

Councilor Noel Wenceslao (Team Rama) said he supported the mayor’s call for Sarmiento’s resignation as the DILG secretary did not respect the decision of the hearing officer assigned to the case.

But other Team Rama councilors — Hanz Abella, Dave Tumulak and  Gerardo Carillo — begged off from commenting on the mayor’s pronouncement, as they all have yet to get an official copy of the suspension order.

Barrios, based on documents obtained by CDN, said Labella and the councilors could not be held liable since Delute and his lawyer Benjamin Militar were quoted in one of the hearings as saying that they were not questioning the validity of the ordinance that covered the P20,000 calamity aid.

Barrios also said that Rama was not guilty of grave misconduct and grave abuse of authority since his act did not go beyond what was stated in the calamity aid ordinance.

Until yesterday, all the mayor was holding were unofficial copies of the Malacañang orders and the Barrios recommendation.

Rama said his legal counsels could not act because “for me, at this point in time, until and unless I receive officially, it’s only talk.”

Ilagan, in the UNA statement, said that what Malacañang and LP were doing against Rama, Labella and the councilors was “patently illegal, excessive, vicious and relentless.”

He likened the current suspension scenario to what happened to Makati City Mayor Junjun Binay in July 2015 when, he said, the LP — through then Vice Mayor Romulo “Kid” Peña — took over City Hall as well.

Ilagan said the administration was apparently doing everything in its power to “knock out” Rama and thus stymied the Cebu campaign of UNA standard-bearer Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Ilagan pointed that Rama, as UNA’s regional coordinator for Visayas, would play a vital role in Binay’s campaign in Cebu City and province after UNA lost the support of One Cebu and even one of its founding member, third district Rep. Gwendolyn Garcia. The Garcias have switched support to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

Commitment of support

On the other hand, around 700 barangay officials, including 69 barangay captains, pledged commitment to continue supporting Rama in a meeting held at the Rama compound in Barangay Basak on Monday night.

Tisa Barangay Captain Philip Zafra, the president of the city’s Association of Barangay Councils (ABC), said they signed their commitment of support for the mayor on white boards that were regular fixtures in the meeting area inside the Rama compound.

He said the signing was a spontaneous move to “show our solidarity with the mayor amid the trial that he is facing right now” and to assure the mayor that they would never abandon him.

“We do not believe that the mayor is guilty of any offense. There was no basis for the suspension order. To us, it was pure harassment,” Zafra said in Cebuano.
When asked if the barangay leaders would consider a mass action if the suspension would be served, Zafra said, “We will cross the bridge once we get there.”