Mayoral row throws Iligan into chaos

A PHALANX of policemen stands guard outside the Iligan City Hall as the city’s mayor and vice mayor fight over the mayor’s seat. RICHEL UMEL

Chaos has descended on the local government of Iligan City after its two highest officials—the mayor and the vice mayor—fight a tug-of-war battle over the mayoral seat just as the next elections draw near.

At the heart of the controversy is the word, or more exactly, the legal concept of capacity or incapacity.

Vice Mayor Ruderic Marzo, an administration ally who was acting mayor for six months, refused to hand over the mayor’s seat to Mayor Celso Regencia who is being held in detention at a local jail over a murder charge.

Marzo, an accountant, contended that Regencia was incapable of discharging the duties of a local chief executive from his detention cell.

Regencia, a retired police officer, argued that barring such a declaration by a competent authority, he would insist on exercising the powers of the mayor’s office to which he was elected by the people in 2013.

The Office of the President meted out a six-month suspension on Regencia on March 2, for abuse of authority, catapulting Marzo to the seat.

Upon taking over the mayoral post in 2013, Regencia issued an order requiring the payroll of all casual and part-time employees of the city council be approved by his office to check against ghost employees.

The suspension order noted that the employees did not fall under the city mayor’s administrative purview.

While still serving the administrative suspension, Regencia went into hiding when the municipal trial court of Initao, Misamis Oriental province, issued on Aug. 11 a warrant for his arrest, along with at least 10 others, for the ambush of Iligan City Rep. Vicente Belmonte.

While Belmonte survived the attack, three of his security aides were killed. Regencia had decried the attempt to link him to the crime as part of a plot to weaken his chances against Belmonte’s mayoral bid.

Smooth transition?

The controversy at City Hall began on Oct. 19, when Regencia sought to retake his post from Marzo.

According to lawyer Raphael Benedictus, who currently serves as Regencia’s chief of staff, they were expecting a smooth transition on Oct. 19.

Benedictus said that during the week prior to Regencia’s expected return to office, the Department of the Interior and Local

Government (DILG) had set the date for Regencia’s return to office on Oct. 16, a Friday, because the suspension order would expire on Oct. 15.

Benedictus said he wanted Regencia to return to the mayor’s seat on Oct. 19 because, based on their computation, the suspension order expired on Oct. 17.

On Oct. 13, a day after turning himself in in preparation for filing his certificate of candidacy for reelection, Regencia wrote the city council declaring his intention to return to his post following the expiry of his administrative suspension.

“We thought everything would turn out smooth but we were surprised at the turn of events on Monday,” Benedictus told the Inquirer on the phone.

He said that during the flag-raising rites on Oct. 19, “DILG City Director Emilio Rana announced that Regencia was suspended indefinitely until further notice and therefore the acting mayor and acting vice mayor would continue to hold the respective posts on holdover capacity.”

Benedictus said that after that announcement, he sought an official document from Rana to back up his declaration but there was none.

Rana’s pronouncement, “even if without official basis,” became the reason for Marzo’s refusal to yield the mayoral seat to Regencia, lamented Benedictus.

For his announcement, Benedictus has charged Rana on Oct. 20 with violation of the antigraft law at the city prosecutor’s office. The

Inquirer received no reply from Rana when asked to be interviewed regarding the matter.

Battle of opinions

Benedictus revealed that “the only documents that Rana could give us were not orders but opinions” of DILG officials regarding the situation surrounding Iligan’s mayoral seat.

One was issued by the northern Mindanao acting DILG regional director, Nilo Castañares, on Oct. 16 and another was issued by Undersecretary Austere Panadero on Oct. 21.

The Castañares opinion was sought by the acting vice mayor, Providencio Abragan, who sought the DILG’s clarification after receiving Regencia’s Oct. 13 letter, while that of Panadero’s was in response to Marzo’s request for the local government secretary to issue either a memorandum or an order for Marzo to continue discharging the functions of mayor.

The opinions of Castañares and Panadero cited several cases wherein detained elected officials were viewed as incapable of performing their duties.

Castañares said he “has every reason to believe that Mayor Celso Regencia’s reassumption on Monday, Oct. 19 … appears contrary to law and unsupported by existing pronouncements of the Supreme Court.”

Castañares further said Regencia “cannot reassume his position as city mayor” as his “detention for nonbailable offenses constitutes a temporary incapacity on his part” to discharge his functions.

In concluding his three-page letter to Marzo, Panadero told him that it was their opinion in the DILG “that by operation of law, you assume as acting city mayor of Iligan City until such time that the temporary incapacity of Mayor Celso Regencia, due to physical or legal reason, has ceased or stopped.”

“[But] unless it takes the form of an order by a competent authority, which is legally enforceable, an opinion is just that—an opinion,” Benedictus asserted.

“Can that opinion become a basis for administering a new oath of office for Vice Mayor Marzo as acting mayor?” he said.

Benedictus added that both Marzo and Abragan had yet to show their new oaths of office covering the period after the lapse of Regencia’s administrative suspension.

“I challenge them to show their new oaths of office,” said lawyer Ver Quimco, a Regencia supporter. “That is the basis for their exercise of powers.”

SOME of the estimated 300 supporters of detained Mayor Celso Regencia gather outside of the City Hall to press for the return of Regencia, who is facing murder charges for the killing of three bodyguards of Rep. Vicente Belmonte, who is running for mayor, during an ambush. RICHEL UMEL

Two mayors

With Marzo’s insistence on exercising the mayor’s powers in a holdover capacity, there are practically two mayors in Iligan City.

On Oct. 19, Benedictus was able to take physical control of the mayor’s office and sent to various local government offices memoranda and orders signed by Regencia.

On that day, Regencia also appointed lawyer Dexter Sumaoy as city administrator, and informed the local government’s depository, mainly the Land Bank of the Philippines, to stop honoring payment vouchers signed by Marzo after Oct. 19.

Sumaoy, according to Benedictus, is having a hard time taking the reins as the city administrator appointed by Marzo also refused to step down.

“That is why we wanted Marzo to lead the way. When he hands over the mayoral seat to Regencia, his appointees will surely follow suit,” Benedictus said.

From Tuesday until Friday, supporters of Regencia staged a Jericho March around the City Hall grounds in Buhanginan Hills to pressure Marzo to give up the mayoral seat.

Benedictus acknowledged that only the courts could settle the question of Regencia’s capacity or incapacity to discharge his duties as local chief executive.

But who should go to court?

Marzo said it should be Regencia. “If the competent authorities say that I should step down as acting mayor, I will willingly do so anytime,” Marzo told supporters in a public address.

Regencia’s camp said it should be Marzo. According to Quimco, Regencia’s return to office is by operation of law as he has fulfilled the purely ministerial procedure of informing the city council.

“If they are doubtful of Regencia’s capacity to perform his duties while in detention, they should seek that declaration from the court,” Quimco argued.

In another twist to the continuing tussle between Mayor Regencia and Vice Mayor Marzo over the mayoral seat, Regencia has issued an order to local government officers overseeing financial transactions not to process payment requests signed by Marzo beyond Oct. 19 in the absence of a copy of oaths of office, among other documents.

Benedictus told the Inquirer that this was the latest of Regencia’s orders following his return to the mayoral seat.

On Oct. 13, Regencia declared his intent to return as mayor beginning on Oct. 19, following a six-month suspension by the Office of the President.

The officers who were sent the new orders by Regencia, according to Benedictus, are the city accountant, city treasurer and city budget officer. The officers need to sign payment requests before these reach the mayor’s office for approval.

Iligan City is among Mindanao’s few so-called billionaire cities. For this year, its budget amounted to P1.3 billion. This is expected to shoot up to P1.5 billion in 2016 with the anticipated increase in internal revenue allotment.

Seven months ago, Regencia refused, at first, to yield the seat to Marzo owing to his administrative suspension. Today, it is Marzo’s turn to play hard ball.

However the drama plays out, this legal tussle between Marzo and Regencia will help define the electoral battle, especially for the mayoral seat, seven months then on.