THE Ombudsman dismissed the complaint against Cebu City Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia and others for allegedly preventing former city administrator Collin Rosell from returning to work in his office on Nov. 8, 2024.
This was the fourth case filed against Garcia that questioned the legitimacy of his assuming the mayor’s office.
According to the letter from the Ombudsman, approved on Feb. 7, 2025 and signed by Corazon Carillo, acting director of the Case Records Evaluation, Monitoring and Enforcement Bureau, Rosell, being the complainant, had no business to report and assume duties as city administrator on that day.
Rosell, who was coterminous with then mayor Michael Rama, lost his position in the City Government which he had secured under Rama’s appointing power when the Ombudsman ordered Rama dismissed in October.
When asked to comment on the development, Rosell, in a text message to SunStar Cebu on Sunday, March 30, said he has yet to receive a copy of the letter.
Also charged in the complaint were former Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) director Col. Antonietto Cañete, Police Station 3 Commander John Lynbert Yango, City Administrator Kristine Batucan, City Legal Office Head Santiago Ortiz Jr. and unidentified members of CCPO and Police Station 3.
Rosell had maintained that Garcia’s assumption of office was illegal as the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) was not privy to the implementation of then mayor Rama’s dismissal penalty.
The Ombudsman, though, emphasized that an appeal shall not stop the decision from being executory, citing Section 7 Rule III of Administrative Order 7 in the Ombudsman Memorandum Circular 1, Series of 2006, which said that “a decision of the Office of the Ombudsman in administrative cases shall be executed as a matter of course.”
“The refusal or failure by any officer without just cause to comply with an order of the Office of the Ombudsman to remove, suspend, demote, fine, or censure shall be a ground for disciplinary action against said officer,” read a portion of the letter.
The Ombudsman said that Rosell’s insistence that the DILG was not privy to the implementation of its decision does not make the decision or its implementation “invalid or without force.”
The Ombudsman dismissed Rama from service last October on the basis of nepotism and grave misconduct charges for signing the appointment papers of his two brothers-in-law.
Following Rama’s dismissal, DILG 7 Director Leocadio Trovela swore in Garcia as full-fledged mayor.
Garcia had been serving as acting mayor since May 2024, when Rama, along with Rosell and six others, was placed under six-month preventive suspension for a separate complaint.
Rosell returned to City Hall on Nov. 8 for the first time since May, announcing that the six-month preventive suspension order had already ended on Nov. 6.
Rosell ended up getting arrested by Colonel Cañete for usurpation of authority but he was released the next day after he posted the P30,000 bail. / JPS