REGIONAL Traffic Management Chief Jesus Manubay paid Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña a courtesy call last week, but got nothing more than a nod from the mayor.
Osmeña was rather lukewarm to the police officer during the courtesy call at City Hall Wednesday morning, which lasted only two minutes.
He said he did not give any instructions to the new Philippine National Police-Traffic Management Group (PNP-TMG) regional chief during the brief meeting.
In his news conference, though, he warned that he would be closely watching the agency because he was disgusted by reports of erring TMG personnel.
“We are carefully monitoring them because I heard that to get that position, some colonels pay P300,000, so we have to monitor what they are doing,” Osmeña said.
Courtesy
The mayor also does not like the reported lobbying done by some police officials with National Government officials and congressmen for them to be assigned in the TMG office in Cebu.
“He (Manubay) said he’s making a courtesy call and I said ‘So what?’ He expects me to jump up and down because he’s new? No way. I just don’t want him to think that he can be chummy-chummy with me,” Osmeña added.
Extortion
The TMG is a national support group of the police tasked to implement traffic rules in national roads and to run after smuggled vehicles or those with irregular registration papers.
Last June, five TMG personnel from the National Capital Region office were investigated for allegedly extorting money from a Chinese businessman. The team also allegedly threatened the trader with a gun. (LCR)
