Garcia: I’m still the mayor

Arguing on technicality, controversial Mayor Nelson Garcia has insisted that he remains to be the mayor of Dumanjug even as the Cebu Provincial Board affirmed its decision to suspend him for six months.

Garcia said yesterday that what was served to him was just a notice of suspension and not a decision from the Provincial Board ordering him to vacate his office.

"He (acting mayor Efren Gica) can sit there, I don't mind. But I'm still the mayor. What they served to me was just a notice. Where's the decision of the board suspending me?" said Garcia in an interview with reporters.

He said the order should have come from the PB, which approved his six months suspension, and not from the office of Governor Hilario Davide III.

Garcia said he refuses to acknowledge the order served to his office last Monday because the whole process was allegedly laced with "irregularities."

Last March, the PB slapped Garcia with a sixmonth suspension for hiring a secretary for the town council, an authority that belongs to the vice mayor who heads the legislative department. The PB found Garcia guilty of grave abuse of power.

It was Gica who filed a string of complaints against Garcia before the PB last year. As ordered by Davide, Gica, a fellow member in the Liberal Party, is now the acting mayor.

Last year, Davide suspended Garcia for two months while the investigation into Gica's complaint was underway.

Garcia is set to file his motion for reconsideration before the governor’s office. He said the motion would manifest that his suspension was "illegal."

Garcia who is affiliated with One Cebu, the party that fielded his brother, Pablo John, to run against Davide, hopes that the governor would hear his appeal.

He warned that if his appeal will fall on deaf ears, he will include Davide in a complaint he will file against the PB.

Garcia has questioned the suspension because the PB issued the decision despite the case having been elevated to the Office of the President.

He maintained that as mandated by law, the investigating body – in this case, the PB – should have stopped its investigation and forwarded all documents relating to the case to the Office of the President.