‘Baste’ laments he still has no control in choosing city’s police chief
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 18 June) — Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, who was elected vice mayor in last May’s election as his father’s running mate, said he still has no control in the selection of the city’s police chief.
This is after Col. Hansel Marantan, Davao City Police Office (DCPO) acting city director, filed his leave of absence, citing health reasons, and is now waiting for Camp Crame’s approval.
Duterte acknowledged that with the falling-out between the Dutertes and the Marcoses, who were allies in the presidential elections in 2022, it would be impossible that he would have a say in the selection of the city’s police chief.
“Under the law, the city mayor should be allowed to choose kung sino yung city director niya. And probably that won’t happen,” he said in a press conference Tuesday evening, which was livestreamed over SMNI News. “That’s impossible. They will never allow it,” he added.
He noted that last year, the Philippine National Police command changed the city’s police director three times within a day without having consulted him.
Duterte claimed that Marantan’s appointment was apparently President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s decision to try “to sabotage” his mayoral term.
“Let them do whatever they want,” Duterte said, but noted that Davao residents know what is happening on the ground and expressed their approval of the Dutertes’ actions through the elections.
“Had they succeeded in sabotaging my term as mayor, then our political rivals should have gotten the votes,” he pointed out.
Duterte clobbered his rival in the vice mayoralty race, incumbent city councilor and former vice mayor Bernard Al-ag. Duterte garnered 651,356 votes against Al-ag’s 78,893 votes.
In the mayoralty race, his father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, won by a landslide with 662,630 votes even though he is detained by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for the charges of crimes against humanity filed against him. His closest rival, Karlo Alexei Nograles, former Civil Service Commission chair, only got 80,852 votes.
Baste said Marantan met him Tuesday afternoon, after the police chief visited the city council in the morning.
“But I think when Marantan was here, and is still here, he did okay [as a police city director]. He did everything that he could, to be fair. So I wish him luck in his career and more power to him,” the mayor acknowledged.
In an earlier interview with the media at the Sangguniang Panlungsod Tuesday morning, Marantan said he sent a short list of three police officers who could replace him as the city director.
Duterte however denied he has seen Marantan’s short list.
With the former president still detained in The Hague, Baste will be in a tricky situation.
The Duterte patriarch was proclaimed in absentia by the Commission on Elections on May 13, a day after the election. He has not filed his statement of contributions and expenses yet, and has yet to take his oath.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla on May 27 noted that should Duterte take his oath of office, “his continued detention would render him both physically and legally incapable of performing the functions of a local chief executive.”
The vice mayor, Remulla said, will automatically assume the duties of mayor, while the highest-ranking member of the Sangguniang Panlungsod will serve as acting vice mayor, pursuant to Section 46 of the Local Government Code
Accoring to a June 3 advisory from the Department of Interior and Local Government’s (DILG) undersecretary for external, legal, and legislative affairs, lawyer Romeo Benitez, Section 11 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 881 provides that the office of any elected official who fails to take his oath within six months from his proclamation “will be considered vacant, unless the official is able to show that the cause of his failure is beyond his control.”
The DILG said that the vice mayor-elect will permanently assume the mayoralty, in accordance with Section 44 of the Local Government Code of 1991. (Ian Carl Espinosa / MindaNews)
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