Saturday, August 30, 2008
Fire marshall asks court to stop filing of case
DESCRIBING the investigation against him as “flawed and unreasonable,” the fire marshal of Cebu City beat his persecutors to the draw yesterday by going to the Regional Trial Court (RTC) first to ask for a restraining order in his favor.
This after Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) chief Enrique Linsangan approved the filing of a formal charge for grave misconduct against Supt. Esmael Codilla him and issued Bureau Order SUS-2008-002, which places Codilla under preventive suspension, beginning Tuesday.
Codilla, in a 13-page pleading, said the grave misconduct complaint against him was baseless and meant to get him out of Cebu City.
Injustice
“The charge of grave misconduct is a by-product of an unfiltered, random and biased investigative work,” he said. On the other hand, enforcement of the order to indict him will cause “grave injustice and irreparable injury” on his part.
Codilla is being made to liquidate some P400,000 worth of gasoline drawn, on credit, from a gas station since 2005. The issue has been used to oust him from the Cebu City Fire Department.
But Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, however, is apparently siding with the fire chief and has instructed the Office of the Cebu City Attorney to assist Codilla with his legal woes.
City property
Moreover, he has threatened to kick the BFP regional office out of a Cebu City-owned property in Barangay Pahina San Nicolas if it does not leave Codilla alone.
Based on yesterday’s complaint for injunction, however, the mayor’s assistance has not resulted in much.
Codilla said the investigation on him was made by a panel Linsangan that formed. Linsangan, in turn, was merely acting upon the request of Senior Supt. Eleuterio Itturiaga, the former BFP 7 director.
Flawed
In support of the allegation that the investigation was flawed, he cited how Itturiaga, in February of last year, told him to submit a request for payment covering the agency’s gasoline expenditures from January to February 2007 and convinced him that the department was making money available.
However, the request for payment was “underhandedly” turned over to the fact-finding committee for use against him, particularly in computing the agency’s monthly gasoline consumption level vis-à-vis the incurred P400,000 debt.
“The herein plaintiff has been blatantly denied due process, a constitutionally enshrined individual right,” he said. (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 30, 2008 issue)
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