Rigoberto Tiglao’s Dec. 27 column hit the proverbial nail right on the head when he stated that President Aquino’s regime is not a rule of law but a rule by law: the selective use of laws and legal technicalities to take out his enemies.
It is indeed unfortunate that President Aquino, through Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, had to resort to an unfair scheme—illegally suspending her six months before the 2013 elections—just to weaken Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia. They have seen that the governor is the strongest endorser of her brother Rep. Pablo Garcia’s gubernatorial bid and thought that suspending her would be the best option to weaken such endorsement. This is not to mention that the governor herself is running for Cebu’s third congressional district where her opponent is a Liberal Party member.
What makes the unfair scheme highly scandalous was the issuance and service of the illegal suspension order only on Dec. 17, 2012, when it should have been in 2011, given the Local Government Code provision that an investigation of a complaint must be completed in 90 days, and the President must issue a decision a month after. The administrative case against Governor Garcia was filed in October 2010. Isn’t the late issuance and implementation of the decision highly malicious and grossly questionable?
Governor Garcia is right in not stepping down and leaving her capitol office, otherwise she could be assailed for disrespecting the mandate that the majority of the Cebuanos have given her for three terms (2004, 2007 and 2010). She has to defend such mandate at all costs, and all democracy-loving Cebuanos are one with her in this cause.
Of course, everything boils down to too much politics—but the more the LP (which could also stand for Lust for Power) harasses Governor Garcia, the more the majority of Cebuanos will hate the party and love her. In this kind of situation, the governor has become an underdog.
And everybody loves an underdog.
—SAM COSTANILLA,
consultant on media affairs,
Province of Cebu,
samcost@yahoo.com