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Friday, January 23, 2004
Tomas warns cops: Follow my orders or face showdowns
By Minerva B. Gerodias/Rene H. Martel
CEBU City Hall’s gasoline allowance for the police force was restored Wednesday night, a day after the mayor suspended it, said Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) Director Cecil Ezra Sandalo.
But Mayor Tomas Osmeña warned that if the police force again fails to follow his orders, he will confiscate the pistols and revolvers the City Government issued to them.
“As long as I’m mayor, I am responsible for the peace and order of the city. My intention here is to create a showdown just to teach them a lesson,” Osmeña told City Hall reporters yesterday.
Sandalo, in a separate interview, admitted that the withdrawal of
gasoline, even for one day, hampered operations. As no negotiations were conducted, Sandalo could not say what prompted the mayor to reconsider.
Senior Insp. Henry Biñas, who heads the Mobile Patrol Group that often responds first to any alarm, confirmed that the gas allocation was restored and they were able to refuel yesterday morning. He refused to answer further questions.
The city’s police force receives an average of 6,056 liters of gasoline a month from Camp Crame, but this is not enough.
If City Hall withdraws its gasoline assistance, which ranges from 250 to 400 liters per vehicle each month, the city police’s mobility will be reduced by an estimated 50 percent.
Why punish?
The mayor decided to cut off the gasoline allocation after he learned that no policeman escorted City Hall’s patrol multicabs during the Sinulog.
But Sandalo explained that most of the “multicab cops” were detailed in the streets because the vehicles were only used to transport supplies during the Sinulog parade.
Police assigned to the multicabs are on duty between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Policemen from different precincts take over in the evening for the 24-hour patrol operations.
In a press statement, mayoral aspirant Alvin Garcia suggested that instead of suspending the gasoline allowance and demoralizing the police force, Osmeña ought to “conduct regular dialogues with law enforcers and come up with a unified strategy and realistic action plans” to stop crime.
“Do not punish the policemen by not giving them gasoline,” said the former mayor. “You should remember that with your action, it is not the police who will suffer but the Cebuanos.”
Warnings
Osmeña, for his part, said he wanted to up the ante on the police so that they will follow “simple instructions” like having a policeman armed with an M16 Armalite rifle ride each of City Hall’s multicabs.
The 46 vehicles, which the City Government rented for P10 million for 10 months from the Norkis Group of Companies, have been used in programs for peace and order, health and sanitation, social services and revenue collection.
The mayor also threatened to fire “on the spot” his staff in charge of dispatching the vehicles, if they fail to report to him that one multicab left without a policeman aboard.
The same warning goes to the police force, with the mayor saying he will take back the firearms issued to several policemen if they fail him again.
Aside from those who earlier received guns, at least 64 policemen were given pistols by the City Government the other day as service firearms.
“Saying please and being nice apparently does not work all the time,” the mayor told reporters.
(January 23, 2004 issue)
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