My lawyers will handle it, says Rama on Ombud complaint

CEBU City Mayor Michael Rama said he would leave it to his lawyers to handle the complaint filed against him in the Ombudsman Visayas by Rep. Tomas Osmeña.

“It has to be handled legally but rest assured it will be answered,” he said.

The mayor said he didn’t want the complaint to affect his functions as chief executive.

Congressman Osmeña accused the mayor of abuse of power and preventing the City Council from passing a balanced 2011 budget by “harassing” department heads and other executive officials not to attend budget hearings. He asked the Ombudsman on Wednesday to immediately place the mayor on preventive suspension.

Assistant Ombudsman Virigina Palanca-Santiago yesterday said it would usually take a month to decide whether a case merits preventive suspension.

“We should be very discreet and careful because it is not easy for government employees or officials to be suspended,” she told reporters.

She said a preventive suspension is issued only under specific circumstances, for example, when there is harassment or there’s a danger that the government official would tamper vital documents.

She said the Visayas Ombudsman would give priority to handling Osmeña’s complaint because the anti-graft is mandated to give preference to complaints involving high-ranking officials, large sums of money and issues that catch the attention of the media.

Despite some “uncooperative” city officials, Councilor Margot Osmeña said she was confident the city legislature would be able to pass the 2012 budget before the Dec. 31 deadline.

As head of the budget committee, she said the Council wants to complete their review of expenses by Friday so they can start budget deliberations to determine how much to approve for the 2012 budget.

She said her husband’s complaint in the Ombudsman was just a narration of events that transpired during the council’s budget review.

She said Rama’s refusal to make department heads appear during the prebudget hearing and his refusal to make City Treasurer Tessie Camarillo explain the revenue sources of the 2012 proposed budget had caused problems.

The council refuses to recognize Rama’s choice of assistant city treasurer Emma Villarete to represent the Treasurer’s Office.

The mayor said he lost confidence in Camarillo and has submitted three names of nominees to the Department of Finance for her replacement: former city treasurer Ofelia Oliva, Villarete and Monina Paires, division chief for the tax mapping division. /Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac with Correspondent Edison delos Angeles