Brutal exercise of discretion

It is true. Michael Rama discriminated against the members and sympathizers of the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan when he was the city mayor. He did not renew the contracts of City Hall employees who were identified with his rival, Tomas Osmeña. When he distributed city-owned vehicles to the barangay captains, he excluded Osmeña’s allies and instead assigned them to village councilmen and other lower officials. I remember calling him out for his pettiness.

But I thought Osmeña was of a different mould, that he would rise above the desire to make life difficult for his enemies; that he will be mayor to everyone, friends and foes alike. It now appears that I thought wrong.

There is no disputing the vast discretion that the mayor possesses in the matter of hiring employees. But it is not asking too much of him to rule with an even hand, to show fairness, not charity, and for even just one brief shining moment, forget politics in shaping decisions.

His decision to deny opposition councilors the privilege of employing consultants is a brutal exercise of discretion, made even more so by his announcement that he was excluding from his ban those who voted for his pet Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project. It’s just irritatingly whimsical.

You see, there was a time when administration and opposition practiced the art of co-existence, when politicians set aside grudges after the election and generally behaved as gentlemen, and when power was exercised with due regard to everyone. I miss that era. That some people would attempt to torpedo Pres- ident Duterte’s war on drugs is highly possible. There are many who have the motive and the resources to do it. But the Palace should do better than just claim that the recent spate of killings of teenaged victims were meant to sabotage the anti-illegal drugs campaign. As it is, it’s really difficult to see the connection.

Look, the two successive killings that sparked public outrage and condemnation were owned up to by the police even if they justified their actions as part of legitimate operations. Kian Loyd delos Santos supposedly tried to elude arrest and then drew his gun and fired in the direction of pursuing Caloocan City policemen, prompting them to shoot back. On the other hand, Carl Angelo Arnaiz had to be neutralized, the police (from the same Caloocan City command) claimed, because he chose to shoot it out with them instead of surrendering after he allegedly robbed a cab driver.

The police would have gotten away with their claim of a legitimate encounter but for a CCTV video and the willingness of eyewitnesses to come out and testify in Kian’s case and the physical and forensic evidence in Carl’s. As more details came out during different, including and specially the Senate, investigations, it became clearer that the victims had been summarily executed.

It now behooves the Palace to explain to the people where the sabotage angle is. Are they saying that the policemen who admitted to having shot Kian and Karl were actually not policemen but impostors in uniform? Or that while they were really policemen, they were no longer part of the chain of command and were receiving and carrying out orders from other sources? Who are they? We deserve to know.

There is no disputing the vast discretion that the mayor possesses in the matter of hiring employees