In calling for a command conference with police precinct chiefs at his home in the Rama compound last Wednesday evening, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama raised alarm bells hours earlier when he claimed that he was told by police and barangay officials that a survey was being done on Cebu City residents to verify if they are for Team Rama or Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK).
The mayor made the claim during a media leaders forum, alleging that these police officers were campaigning for administration Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Mar Roxas and his rival, former Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña.
Having laid this scenario, without naming names and being specific, the mayor can claim justification for calling a command conference with the reshuffled police precinct chiefs and Senior Supt. Benjamin Santos, Cebu City police chief, in the interest of public safety, or so he said.
In railing against the reshuffling of police precinct chiefs, which he said was done without his permission, Rama emphasized time and again how he had been denied the chance to have his own police chief similar to what his predecessor supposedly enjoyed during his decades-long dominance at Cebu City Hall.
The command conference may likely be the mayor’s way of reminding police precinct chiefs that his authority as local chief executive is not to be ignored nor should be superseded by Camp Crame—to show them who’s their real boss, so to speak.
In saying that he ordered Santos to ignore the order to reshuffle the police precinct chiefs, Rama is parlaying his contention that the Aquino administration is going all-out to support his rival in unseating him.
Having been suspended once and now facing another, the mayor’s anxiety is understandable. Santos, thankfully, stood his ground and asked that the conference be held at the mayor’s office instead of his home to which the mayor eventually agreed to.
A Commission on Elections (Comelec) resolution 10030 that exempts the reshuffling of police personnel from the election ban also refutes the mayor’s claim of irregularity even if it is barely a week and a half before the elections.
Regardless of whether or not Rama has grounds to suspect some underhanded manipulation of police personnel for use in the elections, the fact is it is the Comelec that is running the elections and he can elevate his reservations to them rather than acting unilaterally and barring the reshuffling of police precinct chiefs.
It is, after all, the Comelec that decided to defer his second suspension in relation to the P20,000 calamity cash aid despite a request from the Office of the President to enforce it amid a ban on suspensions during the election season.
Rama can well afford to address his concerns to the local Comelec office as part of ensuring the clean, peaceful outcome of the elections in the city.
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