Where is the mayor?

Do we have a mayor in Cebu City? If we have, where is he? Is he out of the country or on leave? I ask these questions because we haven’t heard from him the last few months after he got a tongue-lashing from President Rodrigo Duterte. He has been silent on the latest happenings in the city. He cancelled his daily press conferences.

While everybody is talking about the deteriorating peace and order situation in the city, especially the killing of call center agent Loraine Temple, who was a victim of robbery, and the alleged summary execution of five persons in Barangay Malubog, the “former political has-been” is silent. Why?

At the height of the killings of law enforcers and barangay officials allegedly involved in illegal drugs, the “former political has-been” was vocal in his suspicion that the police were behind them. When his political ally, Tejero barangay councilor Jessielou Cadungog, was allegedly targeted for assassination, he linked the police to it, especially since the “would-be assassin” was identified as a policeman, PO2 Eugene Calumba. He then engaged local police officials in a verbal tussle.

He intervened in the arrest of three persons refilling butane canisters using liquefied petroleum gas and the police retaliated by charging him administratively and criminally for obstruction of justice, grave misconduct and abuse of authority before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas. The owner of the butane canister refilling station was his business ally. His son was also involved in it.

But when Duterte lashed at him during Mandaue City’s Charter Day anniversary on Aug. 29, he “mysteriously” disappeared from the media.

He once claimed to be “father of the city” and that his primordial duty is to protect the Cebuanos from criminals and strengthen the city’s peace and order situation. But where is he now when the Cebuanos need him most in view of the city’s deteriorating peace and order situation?

Why should he hide or communicate only through social media? He should be in the front line in the fight against criminality whether the crime is the handiwork of criminals or law enforcers?

In his Facebook account, he bragged that the City would develop that portion of the IT park owned by the Provincial Government into a terminal for buses that would ferry call center agents to their destinations and avoid being victimized by criminals like what happened to Temple. That’s not the solution. The solution is aggressive police campaign. Why can’t he order the police? Because he has lost control of them?

If he believes that law enforcers were involved in the “salvaging” of the “Malubog 5,” then he should come out and help the relatives of the victims seek justice. He should help secure the safety of the two survivors and encourage them to testify against their abductors whom they earlier tagged as “policemen.”

Maayo lang ni siya kun mga ultimo o mga pobre ang ikabangga. Gusto tag amahan sa dakbayan nga isog ug andam magpakamatay tungod ug alang sa iyang mga anak.

Concentrate lang diha sa South Road Properties (SRP). Pasagdi na lang ang mga criminal nga maoy maghari dinhi sa dakbayan.

We were wondering why he was hiding there. Maybe he was hiding from someone. Maybe he had a rival or an enemy in the illegal drug trade. PRO 7 CHIEF DEBOLD SINAS, ON THE KILLING OF FORMER LAGTANG, TALISAY CITY BARANGAY CAPTAIN MARK FERDINAND BAS IN BARANGAY SIMALA, SIBONGA