By FRANK DOSDOS JR.
Correspondent .
ILIGAN City — The Department of Interior and Local Government served a 90-day suspension order by the Sandiganbayan against Mayor Celso Regencia at around 2:46 pm on Wednesday.
The suspension order, issued in connection with Regencia’s case for usurpation of public functions, was served by DILG-10 assistant director Abdullah Matalam.
Regencia said, “If I stepped down before when it was [then vice mayor Ruderic] Marzo who was left, why not now when my vice mayor, who is a priest, will be left behind. It’s not me but the people of Iligan that they are attacking.”
He was referring to his earlier suspension for grave abuse of authority when he issued a memorandum during his first term prohibiting the then vice mayor Marzo from hiring casual employees at the Sangguniang Panlungsod.
It was Marzo who filed the usurpation case against Regencia.
Regencia’s latest suspension was due to the usurpation case filed against him before the anti-graft court because he continued to perform the functions of a city mayor while he was detained in connection with cases for multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder in 2016. The cases, filed by the then congressman Vicente Belmonte Jr., were subsequently dropped by government prosecutors.
Belmonte and Marzo, incidentally, are political allies.
The suspension order was not immediately served because Regencia filed a motion of reconsideration. It was subsequently denied. He had also sought a temporary restraining order.
Vice Mayor Jemar Vera Cruz immediately took over as acting mayor.
City hall spokesman Jose Pantoja said Cruz would be step aside the moment Regencia returns to city hall.
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