What Rama wants

Is there no other candidate that Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama wants for city police chief than Senior Supt. Noli Romana?

There’s no other reason given by the mayor for his insistence in appointing Romana than saying “I want my own police chief.”

Sure, every mayor wants his own police chief but that reasoning runs counter to the rationale behind the creation of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

The PNP was supposed to be a professional civilian law enforcement agency shielded from local and national politics and the antithesis of its predecessor, the defunct Philippine Constabulary.

The Philippine Constabulary is a product of the late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos who intentionally filled its ranks with people from the Philippine Military Academy resulting in a paramilitary type oriented urban peace-keeping force totally loyal and subservient to the late dictator’s whims.

Vestiges of the Marcos era sadly remain as seen in the appointment of police chiefs who are either related to local officials (think former Daanbantayan Mayor Ma. Luisa Loot and her police official husband) or are like those police officials in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao who practically turned a blind eye on the infamous 2009 massacre of women and media practitioners.

Rama is no dictator despite claims by his harshest critics, yet owing to years of being under the thumb of his predecessor, who ran Cebu City like his own kingdom, the former vice mayor elected mayor (twice) wants to further cement his own independence by insisting on his own police chief.

Rama seems to be enamored with Romana’s Philippine Military Academy (PMA) background and preferred to ignore former Police Regional Office (PRO) chief and now National Capitol Region (NCR) police director Marcelo Garbo’s warning about Romana’s failure to address illegal gambling and drug trafficking in his former post in Negros Oriental, where two of his men are under investigation for accepting bribes from vice lords.

The mayor is adamant about giving Romana a chance but is not so generous with his current Cebu City police chief, Supt. Mariano Natu-el, who said he has a lot to prove before earning Rama’s trust.

People can only speculate why Rama is so eager to replace Natu-el with Romana. He can recite a litany of failures committed by Natu-el to justify his replacement but until Camp Crame agrees to his request, the mayor will have to bide his time and provide overtime work to his legal staff to see if he can secure Romana’s appointment.

Romana, disturbingly enough, failed to report to his assigned post in the PRO-7 last week in hopes of being moved to Cebu City which may indicate exactly how much he wants to become Cebu City police chief.

So while Rama urges Cebuanos to give Romana a chance, he should also be as generous in his support for Natu-el in doing his job at least until he is officially replaced.