Ombudsman building
ILIGAN CITY—The Department of the Interior and Local Government on Thursday served the suspension order – issued by the Ombudsman last year – against 13 members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP), including Vice Mayor Jemar Vera Cruz.
DILG city director Foster Anayron personally served the order after the SP adjourned its first regular session for the year on Thursday afternoon, during which, they discussed but failed to approve a proposal to declare a state of calamity following the floods triggered by Severe Tropical Storm Vinta on December 22.
Under the order, Vera Cruz and councilors Samuel Huertas, Eric Capitan, Jake Balanay, Demosthenes Plando, Belinda Lim, Sorilie Christine Bacsarpa, Ian Uy, Ryan Ong, Bernard Pacana, Petronilo Pardillo, Renato Ancis and Rolando So-ong, were suspended without pay for one month and a day.
“We have accepted the order,” Vera Cruz said.
While Anayron was serving the order, dozens of political supporters of the embattled councilors gathered outside and carried placards denouncing the Ombudsman decision.
With the suspension order, only two councilors—Queenie Belmonte and Cesarve Siacor—remained in office.
In was during the first week of December last year when the Ombudsman decision to suspend them over simple misconduct had reached Vera Cruz and the 12 councilors.
The decision was in connection with the administrative cases filed by former Iligan Representative Vicente Belmonte and former Vice Mayor Ruderic Marzo when the SP authorized then detained Mayor Celso Regencia to transact business and appoint officials.
Regencia was jailed after he surrendered over allegations he had masterminded Belmonte’s ambush in December 2014.
Belmonte and Marzo had argued that because Regencia was jailed, he was “legally” incapacitated and could not discharge his functions as city mayor.
But the city council did not agree and passed a resolution recognizing Regencia as mayor and authorizing him to sign appointments and other documents, including checks.
The city council, in the said resolution, also quoted an opinion rendered by the DILG in Northern Mindanao that Regencia “has legal capacity despite his detention.”
Regencia was eventually cleared of the charges by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and returned to dispense his duties at the city hall. /jpv