Executive Assistant Rufino Alcala, head of the City Risk Reduction Management Office, disclosed yesterday that several employees in the Bacolod City government were promoted and their appointments were regularized Monday just hours before the 90 days suspension order was served to Mayor Monico Puentevella. Alcala said that in his department, two employees were regularized and one was promoted to the position of special operations officer 4. The other two hold the position of heavy equipment operator 2 and SOO 2. He said he does not have the total number of employees whose appointments were regularized and those who were promoted Monday. The Department of Interior and Local Government served Puentevella a suspension order Monday, in relation to the resolution of the Sandiganbayan Fourth Division ordering him suspended for 90 days in the graft case filed against him by the late City Legal Officer Allan Zamora. The graft case stemmed from the alleged overpriced purchase of computers and software packages at P400,000 each, all worth P26 million in 2001 to 2006, funded from the suspended mayor's Priority Development Assistance Fund, or pork barrel, during his incumbency as congressman of Bacolod City. Vice Mayor Greg Gasataya and Councilor El Cid Familiaran were sworn into office as acting mayor and acting vice mayor, respectively, following the suspension of Puentevella. Meanwhile, Councilor Archie Baribar delivered a privilege speech during the 124 th regular session presided over by Familiaran yesterday. Baribar said that last October 16, when current public, elective officials filed their certificate of candidacy for the May 16, 2016 elections, political lines were drawn. A month later, November 16, these political lines became wider and deeper, he said. For the second time around, a very unusual incident happened in the City of Bacolod. For the second time around, a local chief executive faced something drastic from authorities outside, Baribar said. The service by the DILG of a Sandiganbayan order, has admittedly unsettled not a few political feathers, he said. It has made an impact, not only on those who seek office, not only to lowly public servants, but to the general public as well, he added. Baribar said changes did come in the City Mayor's Office, as well as the Vice Mayor's Office and with several departments. It seems, the only institution where there is an imperceptible change is the Sangguniang Panlungsod. Now our people, partisan and non-partisan alike, look up to this Body for guidance. How then should this Body respond to this most unusual turn of political events? He asked. “I humbly submit this proposition: When days are uncertain, the SP will stabilize. When the going gets adverse to certain parties, the SP will equalize. When official action take excesses, the SP will fiscalize,” Baribar said. “The good people of Bacolod then may look at this institution as its stabilizer, equalizer and fiscalizer, as we journey the 90-day political midnight that has descended on this beautiful city,” he said.*CGS BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO
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