DUMAGUETE City Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo is hopeful that there will be a way to retrieve the bulletproof vests that were intended for the police but which were returned to the donor for lack of proper documentation.
Mayor Remollo is giving former mayor and now second district Representative Manuel Sagarbarria the benefit of the doubt when he informed the City Council in a letter that he has returned the bullet proof vests to the donor through Elsie Lee of Lee Super Plaza.
If indeed, the missing bullet proof vests were returned, the sitting mayor is requesting Sagarbarria if it would be possible for Lee to donate it back to the City, because the police badly need the same for their protection especially in the anti-drug campaign of the city.
Remollo said the City Council then should have given the former mayor the authority to accept the donation since the donor even brought the said vests to the office of the city mayor, had it recorded and documented during the supposed turnover activity inside the City Mayor’s Office in the presence of Lee, Dumaguete Police Chief Jovito Atanacio, Sagarbarria, and then deputy chief of police Senior Inspector Philippides Sillero.
Blue ribbon committee chairman Councilor Michael Bandal thanked the former mayor for responding to the query even as they are also waiting for the official statement of Lee whether or not the bullet proof vests have been returned to her.
Bandal, however, expressed surprise as to why the bulletproof vests had to be returned when the execution of the deed of donation could be remedied if the donor, a certain Peping Gorospe, who is out of the country, will execute a special power of attorney and for the City Council to pass a resolution to authorize the mayor to accept the donation.
The City Council initiated a few weeks back an investigation on the “missing” bulletproof vests, which had never been turned over to the Dumaguete police.
Sagarbarria, however, in a letter dated October 17, said that there was no actual donation in the absence of a deed of donation from Gorospe, the reason they had to be returned to his Lee, representative. (PNA)