Tuesday, June 03, 2008 Abra PPOC wants absentee mayor suspended By Ernie Olson Jr.
THE Abra Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) in their latest meeting formally invited Mayor Edwin Crisologo of Tineg, Abra to come home to his municipality "to face the music."
However, the controversial mayor and almost everyone else reportedly expect he will have a rude welcome.
This developed, after Crisologo, who has been staying in Manila since he was elected mayor, was also absent during the latest PPOC meeting attended by 27 Abra mayors and their representatives.
According to Chief Superintendent Eugene Martin, director of the Police Regional Office in the Cordillera (Procor), Crisologo has not spent a single day in his office at the Tineg Municipal Hall ever since he was elected despite having the highest crime rate in Abra, he prefers to stay in Manila instead.
During the PPOC's latest meeting, majority of the Abra mayors wanted Crisologo suspended so they can start an investigation into how he spends the internal revenue allotment (IRA) of the town which amounts to P4 million a month, the biggest in the province.
The PPOC said this is surprising since Tineg is by far the poorest town in Abra, which is also considered as among the 10 poorest provinces in the country.
"The problem is, he has also been accusing me of not solving crimes even when I was not the provincial police chief here or even when I was not the Task Force Abra head," Martin said.
"I am not a superman, so he should come home and help us solve the crimes here and not just stay there in Manila," he added.
According to Senior Superintendent Alexander Pumecha, director of the Abra Provincial Police Office (APPO), Tineg is not only the poorest town in Abra, but also the most violent with eight residents murdered there this year.
In an earlier report, the latest murder victim was Councilor Pedro Enon Sr., who was killed inside his own residence in Bangued last week.
Crisologo said Enon was killed by the so-called Tineg Death Squad, which has been sowing havoc in the town.
Pumecha, however, countered the Tineg Death Squad does not exist and Enon was murdered because he authored a resolution which proposed to appropriate P700,000 from Tineg's IRA to be used as a livelihood fund of its councilors.
"Apparently, somebody didn't want the idea and had him killed," Martin said
He said Tineg gets the biggest IRA among all the towns of Abra because of its size, but the money hardly reaches the town.
He said there are hardly any roads there other than in the villages of Calayan and Caganayan.
Pura Sumangil, founder of the Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government (Ccagg), said suspending Crisologo would be needed so the investigation would be easier for them.
The Ccagg has been in the forefront of exposing corruption in Abra, despite the threats on their group.
Governor Eustaquio Bersamin said he will support the PPOC move to suspend Crisologo and called on the Commission on Audit (COA) to help in the investigation of the town's IRA funds.
Martin said Tineg is even the most pampered town when it comes to police assignment. "We have deployed 80 policemen in the area and even set up housing for them. We are sacrificing for Tineg just so Crisologo would have nothing to say."
Abra, according to the PPOC records, has the highest number of murder cases in the region with 13. Surprisingly, there is no homicide case recorded so far this year in Abra.
Pumecha also said there are only 31 recorded cases in their crime volume and 26 cases in index crimes in Abra. He pointed out "this is even lower than that of Benguet and Mountain Province."
It was also reported that Crisologo filed a resolution before the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) calling for the ouster of Martin and Pumecha for allegedly not solving violent crimes in his town and in the province.
