Ilocos vice mayor takes over from fugitive mayor

CABUGAO, Ilocos Sur – The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has appointed Vice Mayor Deogracias Jose Savellano to take over from Mayor Josh Edward Cobangbang who has been ordered arrested together with 18 more town officials and employees in connection with the 2017 forcible takeover of a beach resort.

Savellano, 29, son of Ilocos Sur first district congressman Deogracias Victor Savellano, took over on Tuesday after the DILG Region 1 declared Cobangbang “temporarily incapacitated.”

No bail was recommended for Cobang- bang who has been charged with serious illegal detention and grave coercion.

Cobangbang and his co-accused were ordered arrested by Regional Trial Court Branch 24 Acting Presiding Judge Raphiel Alzate last week, after the Department of Justice reversed a ruling of a panel of government prosecutors dismissing the charges.

Justice Undersecretary Deo Marco favored resort manager Virginia Nicole Savellano-Ong’s complaint in which Savellano-Ong alleged that she, her fouryear-old son and several resort employees were “detained” and “bullied” when the local government-owned Cabugao Beach Resort (CBR) was padlocked in August 2017 on Cobangbang’s orders.

Cobangbang, 24, perhaps the youngest town executive in the Ilocos region, if not in the country, has not surfaced.

Marco decided to order the Ilocos Sur provincial prosecutors office to indict Cobangbang and the 18 others after finding all the elements of serious illegal detention present.

Cabugao municipal employees closed down the resort without any court order or order from a competent authority, Marco said. (Freddie G. Lazaro)