POLITICAL FALLING OUT: OCA, ROY DRIFTED APART

By HERBIE GOMEZ
Editor in chief

First of Two Parts

MAYOR Oscar Moreno and former city administrator Hilario Roy Raagas started on the wrong foot, and never had a good working relationship since the month they took over city hall in 2013.

According to highly placed city hall sources, there was a gap between the two, starting small in 2013 due to trivial matters, that slowly widened, and turned into a falling out in relations as the list of Raagas’s alleged “blunders” and “inaction” became longer.

Two of the sources agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because they have not been authorized to reveal the group dynamics in the Moreno administration, and because they see the mayor and Raagas as their friends. But long-time Moreno ally Teodoro Sabuga-a Jr., city hall’s social welfare and development chief, corroborated the revelations, and said he can face Raagas, look him in the eye, and say what really happened.

By 2014, they said, Raagas was reduced to a mere figure head of the Office of the City Administrator, and everything that he was supposed to perform became the responsibility of his assistant,  Dionne Gersana.

The falling out became public last week when Raagas was sacked by Moreno, a day after the then city administrator showed up during a birthday party cum political gathering at the Nazareth house of Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of the city’s 2nd District.

The political gathering in Nazareth came just hours after Rodriguez announced he would run for mayor of the city in 2016. In effect, it was a political “call to arms” and a “declaration of war” against the announced reelection bid of Moreno. The lines were immediately drawn, and those who harbored grievances––surprisingly, including those working for Moreno at city hall since 2013––had no qualms about coming out in the open.

The mayor’s supporters downplayed the so-called “exodus” from the Moreno to the Rodriguez camps, saying those who jumped ship were “excess baggage,” and the mayor himself said it was a “blessing in disguise” because it showed him who his true political allies were.

Raagas, supposedly the city’s “little mayor,” turned out to be not one of Moreno’s loyal allies.

Moreno, in his Sept. 14 letter to Raagas, stated that he decided to remove the city administrator from office due to “absolute loss of trust and confidence.”

In the same letter, Moreno accused Raagas of carrying out “surreptitious, but less than covert, action to undermine my leadership” for months. The mayor also revealed that he asked Raagas’s colleagues to suggest that he tender a courtesy resignation but the city administrator “remained callous in pursuing your treacherous action.”

Moreno was blunt in his letter to Raagas: “Allowing you to stay longer in city hall is absolutely scandalous.”

Raagas hinted of a lawsuit against Moreno last week but his elder brother Rey, president of the local chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), said this week that they would just let it pass.

Seen out of context, it portrays Moreno like a mayor who easily gets upset and blows his top over trivial matters like when his subordinates attend parties thrown by politicians he doesn’t see eye to eye with.

But Rodriguez’s Sept. 13 birthday party took place just hours after the congressman declared over radio station DxCC that he was going to run for mayor against Moreno. It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Sabuga-a said Moreno knew as early as March, this year, that Raagas was working with a group that was prodding Rep. Rodriguez to run for mayor next year. Because of this, he said, Moreno asked one of Raagas’s relatives to talk his city administrator into resigning but “Roy just wouldn’t.”

Moreno had reasons to regret hiring Raagas, according to other city hall sources.

“He was always absent, lazy, tardy, and inefficient,” said a city hall department head.

Two of the sources said Moreno first noticed Raagas’s potentials when he was governor of Misamis Oriental. They said Moreno and Raagas became friends when they chanced on each other in Manila because of an activity related to projects being funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (Ausaid)––one was for Misamis Oriental, and another was for Misamis Occidental which Raagas had been working on at that time.

Sabuga-a corroborated this, and added that Raagas sought Moreno’s help with the Ausaid project in Misamis Occidental because of some financial issues that marred the undertaking. Sabuga-a however said he did not know exactly how Moreno helped Raagas with the Ausaid-funded project.

Raagas, a fluent speaker, is no stranger to the office of the city administrator because he served as one during the Magtajas administration. He subsequently won a city council seat.

“Roy (Raagas) did not become city administrator because of political backing. Oca (Moreno) got him because his credentials were impressive,” one of the sources said.

Another said Raagas simply did not meet Moreno’s expectations. “He (Raagas) did not deliver the kind of work that the mayor had expected of him,” he said.

According to Sabuga-a and the other city hall sources, there was allegedly an attempt by Raagas to throw his weight around the month Moreno took over in 2013.

During a meeting of the 2013 city hall transition team, Raagas came with a Roads and Traffic Administration (RTA) executive and then introduced him as “our next RTA chief.”

Moreno, according to one of the sources, cut Raagas short with an in-your-face remark that went something like this: “Kadali lang, Roy, ako man ang mayor.”

The other source said he did not hear Moreno say this but he heard from those who attended that it took place during that meeting.

Sabuga-a confirmed that it happened. He said, “I heard Oca say it to his face. I was there during that meeting.”

Sabuga-a and the other sources said Raagas also had his own list of city hall department heads, something that did not sit well with Moreno because he had other people in mind.

They said Raagas’s list resulted in the first cracks in the Moreno administration because it caused friction among the mayor’s supporters.

They said people in Raagas’s list had expected that they would get appointed in city hall.

“They were given false hopes, and, naturally, became disappointed with the mayor,” said Sabuga-a.

Raagas, according to two of the sources, also wanted city hall employees closely identified with the Emano administration to be “thrown” to far-flung villages or detailed to other offices.

They said Moreno made it clear to Raagas that he did not want to do that to city hall workers because “I am not like that.”

One was RTA operations chief Nonito Oclarit whom Raagas detailed to the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office (Clenro). One of the sources said city hall consultant and Task Force Hapsay chairman Jose Edgardo Uy stopped this from happening because he (Uy) saw Oclarit as someone who knew his work, and who could become effective.

There were more serious “blunders,” according to sources, like city hall’s purchase of 50 hand-held radios in 2013 which Councilor Ramon Tabor alleged to have been overpriced.

Tabor said the radios only cost between P3,500 and P4,500 each but city hall bought these for P10 thousand each.

The sources said the mayor did not know anything about that transaction.

“It was Roy’s,” said Sabuga-a.

After Tabor dropped the bombshell, Raagas found himself defending the transaction.

Sabuga-a said, “A case was filed against us because of him.”

He said there were other city hall transactions and purchases authorized by Raagas alone that prompted Moreno to clip the city administrator’s powers by 2014. Sabuga-a said Moreno issued a memorandum that barred Raagas from approving deals beyond P100 thousand.

“That was the start. Roy took that against Oca, and the gap widened,” said Sabuga-a.

He said Raagas was having financial problems, and his debts piled up despite his relatively fat salary from city hall.

“I really don’t know why Roy was having financial problems. But everyone knows about his debts. Some people in his office were even turned into co-makers,” Sabuga-a said.

In 2013, Moreno became really angry because of Raagas’s alleged inaction over city hall’s contract for garbage collection services with Basura at Iba Pa, a company owned by businessman Roland Ramos who is closely associated with ex-mayor Vicente Emano.

A city hall executive said Moreno’s instruction was for Raagas to immediately terminate the contract due to alleged discrepancies “but Roy sat on it, allowing Basura at Iba Pa to rescind the contract first.”

“Suko gyud kaayo si mayor,” said one of the sources.

Sabuga-a said the mayor was very unhappy with Raagas because he was allegedly slow in acting on the garbage problem that was aggravated when Ramos informed city hall that his company would stop collecting trash.

According to the sources, Raagas would reason out during some meetings but Moreno, being the mayor, always had the last word. There was even a time, one source said, that the two argued and raised their voices.

Moreno has been known among his subordinates for his sarcasm, and he can be insulting at times.

When he was governor, Moreno reportedly lectured subordinates and told them they “better resign” if they cannot perform.

Although a lawyer like Moreno, Raagas was not spared, said one city hall executive.

As a result, Raagas further kept his distance, and he was isolated from Moreno’s circle.

The sources said Raagas stopped functioning as city administrator starting last year, and his assistant, Dionne Gersana, did all of his work.

Despite the animosity, he stayed and continued to receive some P80 thousand a month from city hall.

Asked why it took time for Moreno to sack Raagas, a city hall executive said, “The mayor wanted to give Roy some courtesy, and so, he asked some people to talk to him into resigning. Gersana also told him but he just wouldn’t resign.”

But while the termination of Raagas’s services was “long overdue,” the so-called “exodus” of supporters from the Moreno to Rodriguez’s camps was also something waiting to happen. Moreno, according to his former supporters, had it coming, too. (to be continued on Monday