Thursday, March 20, 2008
Police chief yanked out
DESPITE his accomplishments, Lapu-Lapu City Police Chief Louie Oppus is on the verge of being replaced by the PNP Regional Office.
The City Council, however, immediately said they would prefer for Oppus to stay.
Asked if the impending transfer was punishment for a recent robbery in the city, a tourism and industrial hub of Metro Cebu, Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Director Ronald Roderos said he is just following orders from Camp Crame.
He said the Lapu-Lapu police office requires a chief with the rank of senior superintendent, at least, but Oppus falls a rank below that.
Roderos yesterday confirmed to Sun.Star Cebu that he already submitted five names for Mayor Arturo Radaza to choose from.
The five, according to Senior Supt. Vicente Loot, are Senior Supts. Elias del Rosario Canape III, Augusto Morales Marquez Jr., Roberto Tanega S. Pinili, Arturo Morales Evangelista Jr. and Jimmy Uy Rivera.
Only Marquez and Evangelista currently work with the regional office, as the rest are assigned outside the region. Loot is PRO 7’s Personnel, Human Resource and Doctrine Division chief.
Word of the transfer prompted the Lapu-Lapu City Council, in a special session yesterday, to pass a resolution requesting that Oppus stay on as police chief.
The city officials find him effective and see no reason he cannot remain as chief once the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office is already in place, said Vice Mayor Mario Amores.
Oppus has served as chief of Lapu-Lapu City police station.
But after a referendum turned Lapu-Lapu into a highly urbanized city last year, Roderos said the police force should become a police office headed by a senior superintendent, as the PNP Law requires.
Since it is now considered a key post, the PNP’s Senior Officers’ Placement Board (SOPB) now has jurisdiction over the selection of its chief.
Choices
The SOPB picked the five officials whose names have been sent to Roderos and, in turn, Mayor Radaza.
If Radaza rejects the five police officials, Roderos said the SOPB is required by law to submit five other names. And if the mayor rejects that again, “by operation of law, the Napolcom (National Police Commission) will appoint an official for the post.”
A similar situation happened in Cebu City before. Supt. Melvin Gayotin was the head of Cebu City police office (CCPO) for more than two years, during which Mayor Tomas Osmeña repeatedly rejected all the names submitted to him.
Not everyone in Lapu-Lapu is impressed with Oppus’ achievements.
So far, businessman Efrain Pelaez Jr. and former Basak barangay captain Isabelito Darnayla, both of whom have criticized Mayor Radaza, included Oppus in the charges they filed at the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
Oppus previously filed an obstruction of justice case against Armed Forces Chief Hermogenes Esperon, for allegedly keeping in his camp in Luzon an army major accused of shooting a Cordova councilor and his driver. That case was eventually dismissed.
Oppus is also known to refuse lending the city’s patrol cars to visiting government officials, or even to escort them.
The police chief’s usual reason is that he does not own these vehicles, so the requesting parties should ask for the mayor’s permission and not his. (OCP)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (March 20, 2008 issue)
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