To catch a mouse

Herbie Gomez

CAGAYAN de Oro should prepare for the prospects of Vice Mayor Kikang Uy taking over as mayor, and Councilor Zaldy Ocon assuming as vice mayor. That is a possibility, and assuming that Mayor Oscar Moreno does not survive this impending political firestorm that is drawing its power from the most recent ruling of the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the capitol’s lease of heavy equipment without a public bidding when he was governor.

The amount involved is P1.4 million which, by comparison to other government transactions, is contemptibly small. But that is a non-argument and beside the point. The fact is that the ombudsman decided to file multiple graft charges, and slapped him, for the second time, with a dismissal order with a corresponding punishment of perpetual disqualification from holding public office.

A similar order from the ombudsman nearly cost him the city’s mayorship shortly before the 2016 elections. He survived the first round, massacred nearly all of his political enemies in last year’s polls, but not without being seriously wounded. In his own words, Moreno said it was by far the worst crisis in his political career. Will he survive this second political firestorm?

I have taken note with much interest that the mayor of neighboring Iligan City, Celso Regencia, went on leave after he was slapped with the same dismissal and disqualification order by the ombudsman for grave abuse of authority. The facts of the Regencia and Moreno cases are very different but the penalties are the same.

It’s also worth noting that the complaint against Moreno was filed when he was serving his first office term as the city’s mayor, at a time when the vice mayor was Ian Acenas, and when the city council was predominantly Padayon Pilipino. At that time, Vice Mayor Uy was not in the big city’s political radar, and he and Councilor Ocon were not part of the equation. That is to say, no one ever thought then that the ombudsman’s decision would come at a time when Moreno allies are in control of the city council, when the likely political windfall would end up on the laps of unintended “beneficiaries.”

The situation however is a breeding ground for divide-andule tactics. Given that politics and greed for power are forever busy, and need feeding, this situation should put to test loyalties and alliances, and the very foundation of Moreno’s house.

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My aging neighbor fled Marawi with his children after being trapped in his own house there for about two weeks. They had to take the longer route, passing through over a dozen towns in Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte all the way to Misamis Oriental.

He lost one of his two Marawi houses to a fire that broke out while soldiers and members of the terrorist Maute Group were exchanging firepower. Fearing for their lives, they abandoned the other house as soon as opportunity knocked. Now, they have no idea if the only property they have left in Marawi is still standing or if there is still a house for them to return to when the smoke clears and the dust settles. By his account, as much as 90 percent of the Marawi city proper was already gone the day he fled the place of his birth. The air strikes, he said, should not have been resorted to.

President Duterte said that since the terrorists came to kill and destroy, “I will destroy also and kill. Period.” The Maute Group won’t be able to do this anymore because there is nothing left in Marawi to destroy. What the President said was the terrorists’ mission was something they accomplished by making the government do it for them. This is perhaps the “most brilliant” government strategy ever thought of by any commander-in-chief: stop terrorists from destroying a city by destroying the place ahead of them. Burn the whole house down while trying to catch a mouse. Pastilan.