SAN Pedro Calungsod must be very sad. And also the late Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo.

The recently canonized martyr who is revered deeply by Bisayans, most specially Cebuano-speakers, can see from heaven his home province’s leaders and many of his province mates riven by politics. They should be occupied propagating the virtues of sacrifice for the common good. But they are fighting.

The late Jesse Robredo must also be sad for the Cebuanos. If he is not fully occupied cooperating in his own purgation, if he is already up there in the company of the saints and the blessed, like San Pedro Calungsod, then he is doubly sad.

The people of Cebu are the late DILG secretary’s friends. He feels, as San Pedro Calungsod does, that they should be helping each other build the Kingdom of God among themselves instead of being at war with each other.

But he is also made sadder by the misuse of his name either by the current leadership of the DILG or the Garcia camp in Cebu.

According to both Malacañang and DILG Secretary Mar Roxas it was the late Sec. Robredo who had recommended the suspension of Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.

To this the Garcias react saying it is impossible for the late secretary to have made such a recommendation because he had in fact lauded Cebu province as a model for transparency and good governance. They said Sec. Robredo had awarded Cebu province with the “seal of Good Housekeeping.”

The Garcias also complained that it was highly suspect to claim that the late Jesse Robredo recommended Gov. Garcia’s suspension for he is no longer around to confirm it. The Palace and Secretary Roxas have yet to show any document to prove that the late Jesse Robredo did recommend Gov. Garcia’s suspension.

The late Cebu Vice-Governor filed his complaint against Governor Garcia on November 8, 2010. Vice-Gov. Sanchez died of lung cancer on April 29, 2011. A bit more than a month later, in June 2011 the DILG began investigating the case. On August 31, 2011, the DILG probe ended. DILG investigation (according to Garcia)

On July 26, 2012, DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo found Gov. Garcia guilty of grave abuse of authority and, according to the Office of the President and Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, recommended the suspension of the Cebu governor for six months.

The DILG report was supposed to have been submitted to the Office of the President last July 31. Almost three weeks later, on August 18, 2012, then Sec. Robredo died in a plane crash off Masbate. He had flown from Cebu.

On October 1, 2012, Sec. Mar Roxas took over the DILG portfolio.

Two months and about two weeks later, last December 17, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., on behalf of President Aquino, orders Gov. Garcia’s suspension. The DILG Region 7 people, not finding the governor in the Capitol, left a copy of the suspension order in her office and posted another copy at the door of the office. The DILG then swore in Vice-Governor Magpale as acting governor.

TRO not granted
The Governor immediately filed a petition to the Court of Appeals to issue a temporary restraining order against the Palace order. The CA quickly turned down her petition.

Governor Garcia cites the rule of law in her favor. She says that there is a 120-day rule in Section 66 of the Local Government Code that requires administrative investigations to be terminated within 90 days and further requires the Office of the President to issue a decision within 30 days after the end of the investigation.

An Administrative Order also requires that the Office of the President must decide on cases 30 days the DILG transmits records about the case to the Palace.

Garcia claims that the decision signed by Executive Sec. Ochoa ordering her suspension was issued 474 days after the end of the DILG investigation and 144 days after the Robredo report was submitted to Malacañang.

This is why the powerful Garcia clan of Cebu—her brother is the congressman as is her father, who is a Deputy Speaker of the House—suspects that her suspension is absolutely political. For she belongs to the UNA party of Vice-President Binay and her political foes in Cebu are Liberal Party officials. The LP is the party of Sec, Mar Roxas who is expected to be the rival of Vice-President Binay in the 2016 elections.

That is also the reason the Cebu Governor’s camp has been calling what is happening “Martial Law” in Cebu. “Mar-tial” Roxas, get it?

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte has vehemently denied the Garcia camp’s allegation. He said it was “the rule of law” that demanded the Governor’s suspension.

It turns out that the acting Cebu governor the DILG has sworn in is the sister of another LP stalwart, former Energy secretary and now Cabinet secretary Rene Almendras.

So, as our page 1 banner today reports, Gov. Garcia continues to defy the Malacañang order and has stayed put in her office in the Cebu Capitol. Her rival, acting governor Vice-Gov. Agnes Almendras Magpale, has accused her of having made Cebu province bankrupt—a charge that she refutes by calling the vice-governor’s figures misleading and incomplete and therefore a falsehood.

Some would prefer Governor Garcia to follow the rule of law and fight her suspension at the Supreme Court. But how can she do that without feeling that she is committing suicide if she suspects that the more dominant power in the High Court is pro-Mar Roxas and anti-UNA?