Lapid vetoes recommendation to suspend mayor for 60 days

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — Gov. Manuel Lapid said yesterday he would turn down the provincial board’s recommendation to suspend the mayor of Minalin town for 60 days over the alleged irregular purchase of handheld radios.

Lapid bared his position 14 days after seven provincial board members approved the recommendation of the justice committee headed by board member Ferdinand Labung, to suspend Mayor Edgar Flores. Board member Nestor Tolentino abstained from voting.

"I won’t suspend Mayor Flores because I know the adverse effect of that to him, to his family and to his constituents," he said.

Earlier, there were speculations that Lapid had a hand in pursuing the graft case against Flores.

Flores’ counsel Cicero Punzalan earlier had appealed to the governor to veto the board’s recommendation.

Lapid failed to act swiftly on the provincial board’s recommendation because he was in Romblon for two weeks to shoot the movie Agilang Bundok. He returned last Sunday.

The Local Government Code empowers the governor to uphold or reverse the decision of the provincial board on administrative cases.

In an appeal letter to Lapid, Punzalan cited findings of the Commission on Audit that the purchase of 20 handheld radios was legal.

He added that only the Office of the Ombudsman, where the case was first filed, has jurisdiction over the case.

In trashing the board’s recommendation, Lapid finally dispelled reports that the suspension order was meant to pressure Flores from withdrawing support for Cesar Magat, the strongest rival of his son Mark for the top post of the Association of Barangay Captains’ federation in Pampanga.

"I have no interest in this case. Mark can effectively slug it out in politics. The case of Mayor Flores must be left to the court," Lapid said.

The governor also debunked reports that Vice Gov. Mikey Arroyo was involved in the case.

Lapid said he understood Flores’ plight since he himself was in the same situation before. The Ombudsman had twice suspended him since 1999 in connection with alleged irregularities in the collection of fees from lahar sand quarrying and in the purchase of a P104-million land for the provincial government’s mass housing project.

The Supreme Court stopped the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan from further prosecuting Lapid on the alleged land scam.

The case on the alleged quarrying anomaly is still pending .

Last April, however, President Arroyo returned the control of quarrying operations in Pampanga to the provincial government from the Natural Resources Development Corp., in accordance with the provisions of the Local Government Code.

Lapid said the cases against him were mere political harassment. — Ding Cervantes