THE new heads of the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) will be a businessman and a former police official.
According to a reliable source, mayor-elect Edgardo Labella has chosen Ricardo Barandog Jr. to be the executive director of the CCTO and retired Police Major Andres Bayarcal to be the chief of operations.
Ricardo and Bayarcal will take over positions that will be vacated by lawyer Esmael Garaygay and Francisco Ouano, respectively.
Ricardo is the brother of Police Major Chuck Barandog, commander of the City Mobile Force Company (CMFC), while Bayarcal is the former head of the Traffic Patrol Group in Cebu City.
The biggest challenge to the new CCTO officials is to address the worsening traffic situation in the city in the absence of a mass transport system.
Their second biggest challenge is to discipline motorists and to make them observe all traffic laws.
To recall, Police Major Barandog led the conduct of checkpoints in Cebu City during the campaign period in the midterm elections.
Outgoing Mayor Tomas Osmeña even complained about the checkpoint that was conducted near his house in Barangay Guadalupe, only to be told by the Cebu City Police Office that it was part of their police visibility initiatives.
Police Major Barandog and Osmeña had a confrontation when the CFMC conducted a checkpoint in Barangay Kasambagan and stopped City Councilor Mary Ann de los Santos, Osmeña’s running mate in the last elections.
Labella, during a press conference Tuesday, June 25, 2019, said he will appoint only persons who are “clean.”
“We have to see to it that we are appointing people who are not only competent but also people who have the reputation of probity and honesty,” he said.
“In our administration, we have to avoid graft and corruption, and that’s one thing that I really cannot tolerate even to the closest of allies. If they commit, they really have to go,” Labella added. (From PAC of SuperBalita Cebu, PJB)