Tuesday, April 03, 2007 Second floor of City Hall where few Ted supporters refuse to leave; others ferried home
OPERATIONS at the Mandaue City Hall went back to normal yesterday morning after Mayor Thadeo Ouano instructed his supporters to refrain from blocking entrances to the building.
However, only a few employees from the City Administrator’s Office and the City Council went up to their offices on the second floor because some supporters of the mayor refused to leave.
City interior and local government officer Lilibeth Famacion said in an interview that she had requested the mayor to ask his supporters to move out of the building to allow the public to make transactions at City Hall.
Famacion, however, will not initiate the pullout the mayor’s supporters from the building to avoid confrontations.
Vice Mayor Amadeo Seno Jr., for his part, said he will only take over if he gets an order for him to assume as acting mayor. He said the regular session of the City Council will still go on today.
Hampered
City Hall operations were hampered last Friday when Ouano’s supporters blocked the entire building so the suspension order of the mayor will not be served.
Together with nine officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways 7, Ouano and Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza were recently put under preventive suspension for six months without pay for the alleged irregularities in the P365-million purchase of lamps and streetlights for the 12th Asean summit last January.
Because of the blockade, many City Hall employees were not able to receive their salaries.
Some employees told Sun.Star Cebu that their payrolls could not be processed because signatories, including the mayor, were not around.
“Mao ni ang klarong puasa (This gives new meaning to fasting),” an employee said, adding that they will have to spend Holy Week without money.
The Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 has a “standby force” should the situation in Mandaue City turn ugly.
However, PRO 7 Director Silverio Alarcio Jr. is confident that things will remain peaceful there.
“I think it will not escalate. I believe it will be settled today,” he told reporters, after he was asked if serving the suspension order will not turn into a similar incident in Iloilo last January.
In serving the suspension order on Iloilo Gov. Neil Tupas Sr., members of the Regional Mobile Group had to storm the Capitol in full battle gear and tried to disperse Tupas’ supporters.
Alarcio also said Mandaue City Police Office Director Alexander Abadinas is monitoring the events.
Famacion said yesterday that regional director Rene Burdeos of the Department of Interior and Local Government has not informed her yet that the suspension order was to be implemented.
She also said she already made an incident report to Burdeos about the people who barricaded the City Hall last Friday.
Urban poor leader Eglyrina Caballero, a known die-hard supporter of the mayor, led a group who blocked the door to the mayor’s office.
As of 2 p.m. yesterday, her group stayed at the corridor leading to the mayor’s office.
As early as 7 a.m. yesterday, 50-year-old Romeo Mapas and his neighbors from Alang-alang started waiting outside the Mandaue City Hall.
‘Good man’
He said the mayor does not deserve to be suspended and that even if they are instructed to return home, he and his neighbors will continue to show their support.
“He is a good man…. We can go up to his office when we need help,” Mapas and his neighbors shared in Cebuano.
At 10 a.m., the groups were instructed to leave the City Hall grounds. More than 200 people remained. They said they were waiting for food and for their transportation back to their homes.
Norma Garbo, 55, is the organizer of the Sitio Maharlika group. The group, made up of 41 people, was one of the barangay and sitio clusters present. They were also among the people who came on Friday to wait for the results of the mayor’s petition for temporary restraining order on his suspension.
“We came here on our own. We don’t believe in the accusations,” Garbo said in Cebuano.
Led by Nonoy Gerarman, Ouano’s supporters sat on plastic chairs and blocked the entrance to City Hall yesterday morning.
Yellow tags pinned to their shirts said “J4M2”, which stands for Jonkie for Mandaue Mayor Movement.
Anyone who wanted to enter the building had to pass through a man who would ask what their business was.
Those who wanted to secure community tax certificates had to pass through another entrance.
Employees were stuck at the entrance and could not get in until about 10 a.m. when Cambaro Barangay Captain Vicente Domasian announced through a megaphone that Mayor Ouano is asking the people to disperse.
Domasian, who is running for councilor, asked the people to leave since “everything was okay” already.
In an interview, Domasian said that in his talk with the mayor over the phone, there was no mention of a temporary restraining order.
“This is not a barricade. This is just a show of support for the mayor,” Domasian told reporters.
A few minutes later, Domasian then asked the people who occupied the stairs to come down to allow employees to report back to work.
A group of men occupied the stairs and shouted and cheered when they got down. (AAG/MEA/ Ace Jayssan A. Tapulado, STC Media Comm intern)
