THE controversial suspension of a known opposition supporter has generated yet another scathing criticism, this time from former Cagayan de Oro mayor Manolo Tagarda, who advised lawyer-members of the blue ribbon committee go back to law school.

Tagarda, who had also served as councilman and vice mayor in over a decade of career in local politics, said the blue ribbon committee’s decision placing Patag barangay chair Benedicto Fabricante under 90-day preventive suspension smacks of “dirty politicking.”

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A practicing lawyer, Tagarda found the blue ribbon’s decision legally flawed, in that the resolution suspending Fabricante had no imprimatur of the Council as a whole.

“Whatever findings in its investigation, these should be deliberated in the plenary which is the City Council before further recommendation. This is the right procedure,” Tagarda in an interview with RMN-dxCC Thursday.

He expressed dismay that the lawyers in the committee, pro-administration Councilors Ramon Tabor and Adrian Barba, vice-chair and chairman, had acted “unlawyerly.”

“Murag mga dili abogado (they’re acting like non-lawyers),” he said.

Taking a dig at Vice Mayor Vicente Emano, Tagarda said it may have been also pointless to refer Fabricante’s case to the City Council sitting as a committee of the whole given the vice mayor’s absenteeism. The former mayor is referring to Emano’s over 100 absences as presiding officer of the council.

Tagarda’s comments came after former Vice Mayor Antonio Soriano issued acerbic comments regarding the suspension, describing Barba as a “college law dean who is twice ignorant” of the law. Barba is the dean of the Liceo University law school.

Tabor had earlier defended the committee’s decision, saying the council’s house rules allow the blue ribbon committee to issue resolutions in behalf of the plenary. Fabricante’s suspension, he said, was also “interlocutory”--meaning it’s not final and, therefore, still within the jurisdiction of the blue ribbon committee.

Tagarda and Soriano disagreed with this interpretation, both saying that the suspension itself was a major decision because it effectively deprived the barangay official of his functions as an elected official.

Soriano said “substantive law” cannot be stifled by any house rules that allow the blue ribbon committee to act unilaterally.

Fabricante, who is a known supporter of the political opposition, is being investigated for grave abuse of discretion and falsification of public documents--charges that his lawyers said were fabricated and are politically motivated.