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By NITZ ARANCON, LITO RULONA,
and SHIELA MAE BUTLIG
Correspondents

CONFUSION and tension gripped the city last night as Vice Mayor Caesar Ian Acenas and Councilor Lourdes Darimbang took their oath as mayor and vice mayor, respectively.

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Embattled Mayor Oscar Moreno’s lawyers said the official has not vacated his post and has questioned the legality of Acenas’s and Darimbang’s moves.

The surprise move came after Mayor Oscar Moreno failed to secure a temporary restraining order from the Court of Appeals (CA) that failed to act on his urgent petition after Associate Justices Edgardo Lloren, Edgardo Camello, and Pablito Perez, on separate occasions yesterday, inhibited from hearing the case due to still unclear reasons.

Councilor Alexander Dacer said the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) served the ombudman’s order to dismiss Moreno at 6:24 pm.

Acenas and Darimbang wasted no time, and swore in as mayor and vice mayor, respectively, before assistant prosecutor Abdullah Macagaan inside the vice mayor’s office shortly before 7 pm.

Acenas immediately issued an order to recall all permanent employees who were allegedly placed under floating status by the Moreno administration.

He then asked Darimbang to call for a special session of the city council today to confirm the change in city hall’s leadership.

Acenas said his move to take oath as mayor was based on a Nov. 10 order of DILG Undersecretary Austero Panadero for the DILG regional office to implement the ombudsman’s decision against Moreno. As a result of the vacancy, he said, the rule on automatic succession applies.

Moreno’s lawyer Bryan Dale Mordeno said Acenas’s and Darimbang’s moves were questionable because the DILG has yet to serve the ombudsman’s order to the mayor.

“The order was not served to him,” said Mordeno. “We maintain that Moreno is still the sitting mayor.”

The lawyer expressed dismay over the delays caused by the inhibitions of the associate justices, saying Moreno’s petition for a TRO was urgent.

Mordeno said the mayor’s legal team would ask the CA to grant the TRO first thing today.

He said he feared that Moreno would become a victim of a breakdown in the justice system.

“I really hope the Court of Appeals will really see the urgency of the petition we have filed before them. Grabe kini nga inhustisya sa atong mayor because he was not given due process,” said Mordeno.

He added,“Bikil na kaayo kini on our part. Kung ma-implement ang order, ang among petition for TRO mahimo na moot and academic. Wala na’y bili. This is our great concern.”

The mayor’s supporters started amassing at city hall at around 2 pm, hours after DILG regional director Nilo Castañarez confirmed that he was directed to serve the ombudsman’s order to Moreno. At that time, Castañarez was in Oroquieta City in connection with the DILG’s Buttoms-Up Budgeting program but he said he would serve the order on his return.

Supt. Roque Magsalay, chief of the city police’s public safety company, said some 1,500 people trooped to city hall yesterday afternoon. Many of them stayed throughout the night, and more came.

Magsalay said security was stepped up in and around city hall as tension escalated, and the police closed portions of Gaerlan and Capistrano streets to vehicular traffic.

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