WHILE he denied the request of his successor to move the turnover one day ahead of schedule, Cebu vice governor-elect Hilario Davide III has asked Capitol department heads and employees to support the administration of governor-elect Gwen Garcia.
Earlier, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Cebu Director Jerome Gonzales said the turnover of power was initially scheduled on June 30, 2019. But since it falls on a Sunday, they had agreed to hold the turnover of the executive department on June 28.
In an interview Monday, June 10, outgoing Governor Davide said the camp of outgoing third district Representative Garcia wanted to move it to Thursday, June 27, because the governor-elect had commitments on the 28th. But Davide, too, has prior commitments on the 27th that he cannot cancel.
“We can’t change it. We’ve relayed it to their transition team when they came to deliver the first letter (warning the Davide administration against midnight deals) of Governor Garcia. We will stick with our schedule. Mao man pud ingon sa DILG nga kami ang agdon (The DILG said they will leave it to us),” Davide said.
As this developed, Davide had asked Capitol department heads and employees to support the administration of Garcia.
In a speech after the Capitol’s flag ceremony Monday morning, Davide expressed his gratitude to the Capitol employees whom he has worked with for the past six years.
“In 20 days, I will be stepping down as governor and will assume my new role as vice governor. This will probably be the last time that I’m addressing you as governor. Let me take this opportunity to thank all of you for your service to the province, for the respect and kindness you’ve shown me and of course, for the support and cooperation. I asked them to support the next governor. In the six years that I’ve been here, it has been challenging and fulfilling at the same time. It was both an honor and a privilege to serve the province and the people with you,” he said.
In a separate interview, lawyer Manolette Dinsay, a member of Garcia’s transition team, said they would have wanted the Capitol to hand in the partial documents earlier so they would have enough time to review them.
“The day of turnover is merely a ceremony to check the completeness of the documents and records, but they denied our request. We requested for (it to be moved on) 27 just so we can have enough time to review the documents for completeness, in case there are lacking records with the 28th being the last working day of the outgoing administration,” he added.
Among the documents that would be turned over are the government assessment report for 2018, the Commission on Audit’s 2018 report, contracts and loans and agreements, comprehensive development plan, the local development investment plan and the annual investment plan for 2019. (RTF)