8 AFP members to help secure Brgy. Ermita

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña will use his intelligence and discretionary fund to provide for the needs of the eight Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) personnel that will be assigned to help man peace and order in Barangay Ermita.

The City Government has yet to identify the budget that will be needed for the personnel, but Osmeña assured that the City will fund it.

“For whatever it is, they're going to use my (intelligence and discretionary) fund. We will provide whatever they need because we have to clean up Ermita,” he said in an interview.

The AFP personnel will be staying in a residential space in the village acquired by the City Government and will be accom- panied by two agents from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7.

As for the unreleased salaries of the barangay personnel, the mayor said that City Market Administrator, Atty. Winifredo Orcullo Jr., has already been authorized by the Department of Interior and Local Government to sign the workers' vouchers.

The workers' salaries are scheduled to be released tomorrow.

Osmeña appointed Orcullo as caretaker of Ermita after the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas imposed a preventive suspension to all it's officials, including barangay captain Felicisimo Rupinta, last month after they allegedly failed to cooperate with the PDEA during a drug raid in 2016. /