Most village chiefs defy order to return vehicles

CEBU CITY – Acting Cebu City Mayor Margot Osmeña is now studying possible legal action that could be lodged against barangay captains who have defied her order to return vehicles issued to them by City Hall, as the deadline for the returning of the vehicles ended yesterday.

Osmeña said she is now consulting her legal advisers for her next move, considering that only 32 out of 80 barangays in Cebu City have returned their cityissued vehicles before yesterday’s deadline.

All of the City Hall departments have already returned their city-issued vehicles before the deadline, according to the General Services Office.

“If they don’t want to return it, it is very clear that they are using something that does not belong to them,” Osmeña told reporters in a press conference.

One of the next moves that Osmeña plans to do is to order the General Services Office to confiscate the vehicles that have not been returned and sue those officials who refuse to return them.

The acting mayor said she just wants to make an inventory to find out who are using the vehicles issued to the barangays.

Osmeña was appointed acting mayor after the Department of Interior and Local Government served a suspension order signed by the Office of the President against Mayor Michael Rama, Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella and 12 Cebu City councilors for abuse of authority stemming from their release of a P20,000 calamity assistance to City Hall officials and employees in 2013 after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake and Typhoon Yolanda-hit Cebu.