Suspended mayor reinstated today

SAN MIGUEL, Bulacan – After six months of suspension, this town’s mayor is set to re-assume his position today.

Mayor Edmundo Jose Buencamino is attending the flag-raising ceremony where hundreds of his supporters are expected to grace.

The Ombudsman for Luzon placed Buencamino under six-month preventive suspension last Oct. 18 after Constantino Pascual of Rosemoor Mining and Development Corp. filed a complaint against him for allegedly illegally collecting passageway fees from trucks hauling marble.

San Miguel residents, especially Buencamino’s supporters, said they were glad that the suspended mayor is regaining his post.

The source of their jubilation is the memorandum issued by the Department of the Interior and Local Government re-instating Buencamino as mayor.

In the April 15 memorandum, Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno said there was no more any legal impediment for Buencamino to re-assume the mayorship.

Puno said the six-month suspension meted on Buencamino by the Office of the Ombudsman for Luzon, which started on Oct. 18 last year, has lapsed.

Puno has also ordered Ricardo Villasenor, acting regional director of the DILG, to extend assistance to Buencamino for his peaceful re-assumption of the mayorship.

He directed Vice Mayor Roderick Tiongson, who served as acting mayor during the six-month suspension, to peacefully relinquish the mayor’s office to Buencamino. – Dino Balabo