Cebu City Acting Mayor Margot Osmeña walks past a display of the evolution of the Philippine flag after delivering her message during the 118th Philippine Independence Day celebration held at Plaza Sugbu located in front of the City Legislative Building. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)
From being called “Ms. Babag” (Ms. Obstructionist) to a kidnapper.
Things have escalated quickly for Cebu City Acting Mayor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña who is now being threatened by incoming city councilor Jocelyn “Joy” Pesquera with a lawsuit for kidnapping over the “citizen’s arrest” of Rodolfo Tabasa, a councilman of Barangay Labangon, last Friday evening.
But the acting mayor just shrugged off the threat, saying she was now used to being called different names.
“She can do what she likes. Haha,” Osmeña said in an interview yesterday morning after the 118th Independence Day celebration at City Hall.
“I have been called many names. From Ms. Babag, kidnapper. Now I understand I have been called a fly. I’ve been called a mad dog. I have been called many things but that’s okay. They can call me what they want. I know naman who I am. And I know I’m not a mad dog, I’m not a fly, I’m not a kidnapper,” she added.
Osmeña reiterated that she did not order personnel from the General Services Office (GSO) to arrest Tabasa in his home in Sitio Bon-Ami in Labangon.
She said she didn’t expect the citizen’s arrest would be made but added that she was not surprised by it.
“I didn’t expect but I also am not surprised because it’s been three weeks and we just wanted, let’s go back to the very reason why the memo was issued – to have an inventory. That’s it,” she said.
Lawyers from Team Rama were meanwhile still determining the cases they would be filing and who would be named respondents.
Lawyer Ernesto “Estong” Rama, one of Tabasa’s legal counsels and cousin of suspended Mayor Michael Rama, told Cebu Daily News in a phone interview that they were still evaluating their evidence before they decide which particular case they would file.
He said a press conference would be called tomorrow, a Tuesday, the tentative day they would file the case in court.
NO KIDNAPPING, NO MARGOT?
But incoming Cebu City Councilor Jose Daluz III, a lawyer, said kidnapping won’t probably be one of the cases they would file.
“If it’s kidnapping, there should be a ransom. Here, there’s none,” Daluz told CDN.
What they were considering, he said, were illegal arrest and illegal detention charges.
Among the officials they would implead in the case would be GSO personnel Kenneth Amor and Rafael Cabunilas, who led the so-called “citizen’s arrest” against Tabasa; and the four policemen who accompanied them during last Friday’s arrest.
Daluz said that while they suspected Osmeña to be behind the arrest, they were not sure that she issued the order.
“Honestly, our suspicion is the GSO personnel were acting on the orders of their superiors, which, in this case, is the acting mayor. But we still have no evidence,” he said.
Daluz insisted that the arrest was illegal since City Hall has yet to cancel the memorandum of receipt (MR) issued to Tabasa for the vehicle.
He said Osmeña’s memorandum could not supersede the validity of the MR since the city could only supervise but has no control over the barangays.
The assignment of the vehicles was also covered in the city’s 2012 budget ordinance, which provided the fund to purchase vehicles for the city’s 80 barangays, including the Toyota Hilux that was in Tabasa’s keeping.
‘PLEASE RETURN’
But Osmeña would not budge on the enforcement of her recall order and even questioned why Tabasa claimed he did not know about the order.
“Please. I mean I have said it already before. Apparently, please doesn’t work. But can I say it again? Please return. Let’s just avoid things like this happening. Just return. And then we will make the inventory. And then if everything is justified that it should be reissued back to your barangay, why not?” she said.
In fact, she said several barangays that returned some of their vehicles already got back them back.
Among those reissued was an L300 van, which was given back to Nieves Narra, the acting barangay captain of Adlaon and mother of the late barangay captain, Elvis Narra, who died on June 5 after figuring in a motorcycle accident a week earlier.
Other barangays had some of their vehicles, such as service buses, returned to them but not the high-end vehicles, such as Toyota Hilux, Toyota Innova and Mitsubishi Strada and Fuzion, that were issued to barangays earlier, according to GSO acting department head Ronaldo Malacora.
In a phone interview, Malacora also maintained he did not order his personnel to arrest Tabasa.
“My only participation is that they asked for assistance (from GSO). It was actually the city legal office and the police who asked that they needed our personnel to identify the vehicles. So I sent my men and my instruction was to coordinate with them,” he said.
He said he did not know that what would happen would be an actual “citizen’s arrest.”
Malacora said he was not able to answer calls over the weekend since he was on vacation in Dapitan City and cellphone signal coverage there was weak. He got back to Cebu City last Saturday.
Sought for comment, Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) director Senior Supt. Benjamin Santos Jr. said the police did not initiate the operation.
“Wala naman (There was none) [instructions for arrest]. The police was there only for safety, to maintain peace and order,” said Santos who also attended yesterday’s Independence Day celebration at City Hall.
He added that the police could not arrest the barangay officials who were named in Osmeña’s police blotter complaint since they have no personal knowledge about what happened with the recalled vehicles.
This was why it was the GSO personnel that conducted the arrest, Santos said.
MORE TARGETS?
After what happened to Tabasa, Apas Barangay Captain Ramil Ayuman, who belongs to Team Rama, said he would not be surprised if he would also be arrested in the coming days.
Ayuman is among the officials of 13 barangays who still have to return their city-issued vehicles.
“I’m expecting [to be arrested too], especially since I’m also very vocal against Margot. But we have to look at the legal basis. If they come for me, I would ask for a document as basis for their arrest. If they can’t give me that, I won’t heed,” Ayuman told CDN.
In fact, Ayuman, a former television journalist, said he was informed by some of his sources in the City Intelligence Branch (CIB) of the CCPO that he was among the targets in last Friday’s arrest.
He said he was told that there were at least five of them including Tabasa who were supposed to be arrested last Friday. Other officials included those from Barangays Kamagayan, Basak Pardo, Cantipla and Tabunan, Ayuman said.
“They (CIB personnel) were hesitant (to) implement the arrest but they were pressured by the Osmeñas. There is really no basis,” Ayuman claimed.
He said that barangay officials identified with the Rama camp have started to lose respect for Osmeña as they are now being pursued and targeted one by one.
Ayuman said their group of barangay captains were reluctant to return the vehicles because Osmeña has refused to answer their letter seeking reconsideration of her recall order.
However, he said, they had actually decided to return all the vehicles before July 1, when incoming Mayor Tomas Osmeña would take over the helm of the city.