First Cebu, then Mandaue. Will there be a third?
In a span of less than four months, the chief executives of the two biggest cities in the island fell under the weight of the awesome powers of the Ombudsman. After what happened to Mayors Michael Rama and Jonas Cortes, you cannot blame Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Ahong Chan, who is said to be superstitious, if he looks behind his back more frequently and more worriedly these days. His city is the third largest, next to Cebu and Mandaue.
Rama was preventively suspended for six months in May; last week, Cortes was penalized with a one-year suspension. In both cases, the mayors were not accused of making money but for refusing to pay the salaries of four City Hall employees in the case of Rama, and in Cortes’s case for designating a supposedly unqualified person to head Mandaue’s social services office.
Supporters of both mayors claim that politics was involved in each of the two suspensions. The accusation is conjectural because it is based on the assumption that a constitutional office holder would knowingly take sides or allow his office to be used in a political rivalry. The penalty imposed on Cortes is undoubtedly harsh and unfair but couldn’t it have been because of an honest, even if egregious, mistake?
Besides, their political opponents know or ought to know the risks involved in serving the incumbents a raw deal. That is the surest and shortest way to convert them into martyrs in the eyes of the voters.
In fact, I see this slowly happening in the case of Cortes. His suspension is galvanizing his base and turning the 50/50 towards his direction.
And the Mandaue mayor couldn’t have played it smarter. Instead of howling in protest, Cortes meekly stepped down, signalling his vice mayor to take over even while his lawyers were busy honing up their arguments why the suspension should be lifted.
Cortes knows that his vice mayor will not desert or double-cross him. That was why he was so confident to announce that there was going to be no interruption in the services and no change in the policies at City Hall even while he’s suspended. Vice Mayor Glenn Bercede is a loyal and trusted ally.
It is a privilege that Rama did and does not enjoy. While he and Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia were elected under the same ticket, their relationship was frayed from the start, owing to Rama’s reluctance to accept Raymond as running mate. It was thus not surprising to see the acting mayor setting aside the policies of the elected one.
Both Rama and Cortes are expected to run for re-election in next year’s election. Assuming that he fails in having his suspension reversed by the Courts, Cortes will still be out of office during the election and even after, if he wins. The earliest that he could assume office would be in late August.
Rama’s preventive suspension ends in November. There is loose talk that he will be slapped with another suspension as soon as the first one is served to keep him out of City Hall throughout the election cycle. I refuse to believe that. His political enemies will not commit that miscalculation.
Otherwise, they will just have to dismiss Rama—and Cortes—and perpetually bar them from holding public office. Are their political enemies desperate enough to get rid of them and commit the gravest miscalculation?