Duterte vs Tomas: It’s deeper than we think
It was only three weeks ago when President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte came to the Mandaue fiesta and literally lambasted Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña on something we already wrote about. That the president warned the mayor that he would “tamparos” him gives us an idea that something went terribly wrong with a meeting supposedly planned between President Duterte and Mayor Osmeña. But stories have surfaced that Mayor Osmeña didn’t show up in that meeting with the president, hence the president showed signs of being pissed at Mayor Osmeña.
One would think that it was just a spur of the moment event when the president took a potshot at Mayor Osmeña, but it seems to have been a deeper problem because even when he was in Laoag, Ilocos Norte, last Sunday night he once again criticized Mayor Osmeña saying: “This guy must be crazy. Pupunta doon sa prisohan tapos ipa-release yung mga nahuli. Those arrested by the police, he demanded the release.” Frankly speaking, I never thought that the president would remember that incident, but apparently he did.
That was the incident that happened last August 24 at the Parian Police Station in Cebu City were he learned that three men were arrested for refilling butane canisters with liquefied petroleum gas. Mayor Osmeña went to the Parian Police station and told the police that he will take custody of the three men. The policemen on duty reportedly felt intimidated by the mayor’s presence and gave in to his demands even if the arrested persons were not under his jurisdiction.
Since that incident, Mayor Osmeña has stopped holding his daily press conference with the Cebu media and, as far as this issue goes, he has remained mum, especially when talks showed that the three men that he took into custody were workers of his son’s business partner. Of course for as long as we really don’t know the real story on this issue, we cannot comment on it until we hear some kind of denial coming from Mayor Osmeña.
I understand that at this juncture, the police already filed a case of obstruction of justice, grave abuse of authority, and misconduct for violating ethical standards for government officials and employees to the Office of the Ombudsman. I really don’t know how long the Office of the Ombudsman will take before it decides on this case. But with President Duterte repeating this issue every now and then, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Office of the Ombudsman will suspend Mayor Osmeña for not publicly explaining why he released those three prisoners. If it is true that those three were employees of a friend or partner of his son, then the mayor is really in deep trouble this coming election.
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A few weeks ago, the entire police force of Talisay City was relieved following reports that some big official belonging to the Parojinog robbery group in Ozamiz City had moved to Talisay City and were on top of certain policemen who followed the Parojinog Group until they were neutralized last year. Call that a real police intelligence coup that they were able to relieve an entire police force and hopefully they have arrested those robbery group members. But what’s disturbing to me is that news report that we read that the Parojinog robbery group is also in Mandaue City! Has the Parojinog robbery group merely moved to another safe house in Mandaue City?
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While the Bulacan Court has convicted retired Major General Jovito Palparan Jr. last Monday, I apparently believe that Palparan had no hand in the kidnapping of these two University of the Philippines students in 2006. Like what Palparan said, the witness Raymondo Manalo did not immediately link him to the disappearance of Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan and only changed his testimony nine years later. This means that this conviction can still be overturned.
What I do know about Palparan was that he was the number one enemy of the Communist Party of the Philippines and their comrades were all out to have been charged for whatever crimes that happened against those who joined the Communist movement.
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