Labella on his upcoming inauguration: God first

Incoming Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella. | CDN file

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City incoming Mayor Edgardo Labella will be taking oath as the city’s top executive on Sunday, June 30, and the first time mayor is already preparing for his assumption.

Labella said that before assuming office, he was planning to offer his service to God.

Before he takes oath as the new city mayor, a Mass will be held at the Plaza Sugbo where Labella will take oath in front of Associate Justice Amy Javier.

Read more: Labella to take oath as new mayor in front of Associate Justice

“The first thing that we do during the oath taking is for us to hear Mass. God first. And the rest, it will be a very simple ceremony. We are hoping all the department heads whom we have appointed will be there to attend,” said Labella.

The incoming mayor said he was not expecting a lot of people to attend the inauguration, but he said all his supporters would be welcome during the event and their presence would be appreciated on the ‘very day’ he would finally take the top executive seat in the city.

Labella said one of the first things he would make sure as a mayor would be transparency — that his administration’s spending would be properly documented and transparent to the public.

“We have to see to it that the money intended for a project will be properly allocated and properly utilized,” said Labella in Cebuano.

Read more: Osmeña strips off his office of furnishings as he ends his term

The incoming Mayor’s first challenge will be facing an empty office during his first day on July 1 as outgoing Mayor Tomas Osmeña stripped bare the Mayor’s Office in City Hall and taking along most of the furniture.

Osmeña’s legal counsel said that in 2016, the City Council dominated by Labella’s partymates in Partido Barug, which was then called Team Rama, denied the request of Osmeña for a budget of renovating his office.

The City Council denied the request because they said the renovation of the Mayor’s Office was an unnecessary expense.

Osmeña shelled out P2 million from his own pocket to pay for the renovation of the mayor’s office. In a previous statement, Osmeña said that he was restoring the Mayor’s Office the way it was “all the way back to 2001.”

Read more: Labella tells bizmen: Office of the Mayor in shambles

Labella already said he would be filing charges against Osmeña’s act of “vandalism” in the mayor’s office.

“The ruin of the city Mayor’s Office is hard to believe. It’s a shocker. But as I reflect on it, perhaps it is no more than a microcosm of the way someone has left an entire city in shambles,” Labella had said in statement to the media.

The incoming mayor said he would be staying inside the stripped-bare office while it was being renovated.

The incoming city administrator said that they would be putting measures to keep debris from falling on the new mayor’s head./dbs