Unliquidated

The administrative and criminal complaints filed by Mayor Tomas Osmeña against 37 barangay captains stemmed from their supposed failure to liquidate the cash assistance they received from the Cebu City Government in the previous years. The barangay chiefs are allied with the opposition Barug Team Rama.

The dredging of muck and the hurling of these at opponents is a common practice among politicians especially during the campaign period in an election. On Monday, voters will troop to the precincts to vote for their preferred barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) candidates.

Osmeña’s action, considering the timing, therefore partakes of muck dredging although he is not running for a position in the barangays. The intention is obvious considering his target. He is not a candidate but, like the political opposition, he has bets that he hopes would win in the elections.

The opponents of his favored candidates won’t be disqualified just because the mayor filed cases against them. Their cases will still be heard and considering how the anti-graft office moves, their resolution could take years. Some of them may eventually be found guilty but at this stage everyone is considered innocent. So why is Osmeña filing the cases now and not after the elections? Or why didn’t he file these before?

Being sued before the Office of the Ombudsman taints the respondents with corruption even if the cases filed are malicious or bereft of proof. That is obviously what the mayor wants voters in the concerned barangays to think of as election day nears. He dredged the muck and hurled it at the rivals of his bets.

But does failure to liquidate cash assistance given necessarily mean the barangay officials who received it pocketed the money? Failure to liquidate could mean that or it could be an innocent act resulting from incompetence or fault in the auditing and accounting setup.

The 37 barangay captains sued could be corrupt or they could be innocent. That’s why the mere filing of cases with the anti-graft office should not prod voters to jump to conclusions like what the mayor apparently wants them to do.