- Advertisement -

By NORA SORINO,
BONITA ERMAC
and SITA ASEQUIA
GSD-Iligan Bureau

ILIGAN City–The crisis at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penologyun prison facility in this city took a turn for the worse with supporters of detained Mayor Celso Regencia continuing to gather outside in an effort to prevent the transfer of the detained mayor to Cagayan de Oro.

- Advertisement -

Regencia himself has cried foul over the order to transfer him to a Cagayan de Oro prison.

The Iligan jail warden, Omar Jalagat, has reportedly been relieved.

Rep. Vicente Belmonte Jr., whose December 2014 ambush near the airport in Laguindingan, Misamis Oriental resulted in Regencia’s legal woes, has questioned the jail warden’s actuations, pointing out that he (warden) received the court order to transfer the detained mayor to Cagayan de Oro in March 4.

Belmonte said the warden did not follow the court order, and instead “alerted” Regencia’s group.

Melvin Anggot, a spokesperson of the group of Vice Mayor Ruderic Marzo and Belmonte, said the congressman told him that Jalagat voluntarily asked to be relieved because he could no longer handle the pressures.

A prison official from Valencia City in Bukidnon was reportedly ordered to replace Jalagat.

Regencia’s supporters barricaded the road leading to the prison facility.

They placed a wooden cross by the roadside and then moved it later to a conspicuous place before the entrance to the prison facility.

Regencia’s running mate, Jemar Vera Cruz, accused the “yellow power” of “clear abuse of power,” obviously referring to Bemonte’s group, the administration Liberal Party.

Vera Cruz, a priest, said the pressures on the warden were coming from the Interior department, [articularly from an “undersecretary.”

He said the wooden cross on the road symbolized the “sacrifice of Regencia,” and the cry against the “injustice to the mayor and to the people of the city as well who elected him.”

Belmonte, for his part, said Regencia should be detained in the Misamis Oriental provincial jail because the crime the mayor is accused of took place in the province.

Belmonte said it was unfair to drag the LP into the legal battle.

“I am the victim here,” he said.

The congressman belittled the gathering of Regencia’s supporters, saying that he, too, could organize his own “people power,” pointing out that he had the support of 40 thousand voters in the city in the 2013 elections “much bigger than Regencia’s.”

Belmonte’s lawyer, Rejoice Subejano, said Regencia’s legal counsels should articulate their arguments against regional Judge Marissa Estabaya’s order to transfer the detained mayor in court.

A hearing on the Regencia case is scheduled in Initao on March 18.

Disclaimer

Mindanao Gold Star Daily holds the copyrights of all articles and photos in perpetuity. Any unauthorized reproduction in any platform, electronic and hardcopy, shall be liable for copyright infringement under the Intellectual Property Rights Law of the Philippines.

- Advertisement -